How Journals and Institutions Can Work Together to Promote Responsible Conduct

There is limited formal guidance on how institutions and academic journals collaborate to promote responsible conduct of research. Since the issuance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guiding document, " Cooperation between research institutions and journals on integrity cases " (4), little else has been published on the topic. As a result, institutions are left to interpret—with varying levels of consistency among them—federal regulations a governing research misconduct. Furthermore, in working with or informing journals, institutions may follow informal practices that are predominantly guided by institutional culture, habits, or ad-hoc decision-making. In this brief article, I shall focus on the following areas: • Some reasons why institutions are reluctant to inform journals about potential research misconduct prior to the federal Office of Research Integrity's official findings of misconduct. This includes delayed reporting to journals. • What journals do which may inadvertently harm institutional processes in research misconduct allegations , responses, and investigations. • Some ideas on what journals and institutions may do to address research misconduct collaboratively. Institutional aversions to risk and litigation 42 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 93 establishes the key regulatory framework pertaining to research misconduct for institutions receiving Public Health Service (PHS) support. Some particular sections b of 42 CFR 93 may cause confusion and frustration for institutional officials and journal editors. These problematic areas involve confidentiality, timing, and due process to ensure the rights of the informant-complainant and respondent to research misconduct allegations are protected. Institutions predominantly rely on federal regulations to guide their written policies and procedures for when to inform journals of research misconduct, defined as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism. The regulations explicitly prohibit informing those without a need to know in order to conduct a fair and objective research misconduct proceeding. Consequently, we face our first challenge: while a journal editor may wish to be informed at the first possible sign of research misconduct, the institution is prohibited from warning the journal of potential problems too early. The journal is not typically a direct party to the research misconduct proceeding or investigation. Thus, institutions often dismiss the journal as among those who are initially informed. Furthermore, too early a notification to the journal of an allegation of research misconduct could prematurely and inappropriately harm the reputation of the accused (also known as the respondent). In addition, disclosing the names of the accused to journals—or even that an investigation has been …