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  • Guidelines

    Retraction guidelines

    …COPE's Retraction guidelines for advice and guidance for editors: when should a retraction be considered, what to include in a notice, how quickly to issue a retraction, who should issue a retraction, and what to do when there is inconclusive evidence of a retraction. COPE Guidelines are formal COPE policy and are intended to advise editors and publishers on expected publication et…
  • Guidelines

    Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity and publication misconduct cases

    Research institutions and journals both have important duties in the management of research misconduct and adherence to publication ethics. It is therefore important for institutions and journals to communicate and collaborate effectively. These COPE guidelines deal with the expectations and processes for communication. Ensuring research and publication integrity requires that institutio…
  • Case
    On-going

    When Correction, Retraction and Expression of Concern could be considered?

    Recently, we received a review report from PubMedCentral for the indexing application of one of our journals. Reviewers pointed out several shortcomings of particular articles below: 1. Discussions that did not thoroughly address limitations, and conclusions that were over-stated and/or not supported by the results. 2. Methods that were not described clearly and in sufficient deta…
  • Case
    On-going

    Same cohort - same blood samples - multiple tests

    This is a hypothetical situation based on a real-life experience. A set of authors recruited the same patient cohort, collected data with two questionnaires, took one blood sample, but tests were done by two research students for two pathogens, and the results were presented separately in two theses. Subsequently, they sent different papers to two journals. No plagiarism has been identif…
  • Case
    On-going

    Plagiarism by a possible predatory journal

    An article published in a journal in 2023 appears to have been plagiarised in a possible predatory journal but the publishers are unable to get a response from the predatory journal or affiliated Institute.  The article (Article A) was submitted to Journal X in 2022 and published early in 2023. The authors reached out to the Journal after finding that another article dated from 2021 (Art…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Potential image integrity flags on 15-year-old published papers

    What should a journal do if an old (more than 15 years old) published paper is flagged on PubPeer for image concerns, but the case cannot be resolved due to the time lapsed? For example, if only low quality images are available online that cannot be analysed conclusively; some of the key authors may no longer be contactable; the raw data is no longer available; an institutional investigation is…
  • Seminars and webinars

    Post-publication critiques

    This panel discussion, hosted by COPE Council member, Kim Eggleton, featured four speakers who are experts in promoting post-publication critiques. The panel discussion was part of COPE's Publication Integrity Week 2023.
  • Seminars and webinars

    Publication ethics, research integrity and climbing mountains

    In this keynote address Chris Graf (Research Integrity Director, Springer Nature) gives an overview of the present state of publication ethics and research integrity. This discussion is one of eleven sessions hosted by COPE during Publication Integrity Week 2023.
  • Seminars and webinars

    Post-publication corrections

    This discussion panel features Elizabeth Moylan (Senior Manager, Research Integrity Strategy & Policy at Wiley), Mark Hooper (Manager, Research Ethics and Integrity at the Queensland University of Technology), and Jennifer Byrne (publication integrity ‘sleuth’ and the University of Sydney), talking about dealing with issues that arise after publication has taken p…
  • Seminars and webinars

    Image manipulation

    In this session, Jana Christopher, Image Data Integrity Analyst at FEBS Press, offers an authoritative overview of current issues and tools in detecting image manipulation. This discussion was part of 'Publication Misconduct and Fraud Day' hosted by COPE during Publication Integrity Week 2023.…
  • Seminars and webinars

    Introduction to publication ethics and the COPE ethics toolkit

    In this session, COPE Trustee Trevor Lane and Council Member Siri Lunde Stromme (co-chair of the COPE Membership subcommittee) introduce the basic principles of publication ethics and how to use guidance and tools available to ensure publication ethics is embedded in a journal's day to day practice. This discussion is one of eleven sessions hosted by COPE durin…
  • Case
    On-going

    Author retracts request to be removed from author list

    An author of a coauthored article published in our journal ten years ago contacted the outgoing editors with a request to have their name removed. The author in question is Dr A of University 1 and they are the paper’s first author. Their stated reason for doing so was that they had recently discovered errors in a table in the paper. The second author on the paper, Dr B, provided the original d…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Request for retraction due to alleged ethical misconduct in a grant application

    A journal received a request from University A for a published paper to be retracted, citing ethical issues with the grant application submitted by an author from University B. The journal is satisfied that the rigorous editorial processes required by the journal were followed prior to publication and asked for specific details of the ethical breach; evidence that all authors on the publication…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Complaint over protocol used in special issue

    We launched a Special Issue (SI) focusing on the application of a particular clinical protocol, with guest editors that have an extensive clinical history in applying this protocol. This specific protocol is currently used and promoted by a small subset of practitioners, with limited wider recognition. The SI concluded with a substantial number of published articles, including several case repo…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Ukrainian authors request retraction of article published in Russian conference proceedings

    A journal has been contacted by a group of authors from Ukraine who wish to retract their article because of acute ethical issues in relation to the war with Russia. The authors are employees of a research institute in Ukraine. When preparing their article they were not fully informed about the country of the organisers of the conference. They are concerned that participation in a Russian confe…
  • Discussion documents

    Dealing with concerns about the integrity of published research

    This guidance presents practical considerations for managing scenarios where editors are contacted with ethical concerns about the integrity of published research. In recent years, reporting of ethical concerns about research publications has become more prevalent, and the issues identified have become more complex. This includes situations where multiple concerns are raised simultaneous…
  • Case
    On-going

    Possible image manipulation

    A whistleblower posted on PubPeer regarding some apparently overlapping images in an article published several years earlier. To the research integrity team there appeared similarities, enough to warrant a request for the original images / raw data from the authors. The authors said they no longer had access to the original data and have denied any editing was made to the images. We commissione…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Request for a retraction from a pharmaceutical company

    A journal recently received an 11 page letter via email titled ‘request for a retraction’ from a pharmaceutical company (PC). They have issues with one of our critically appraised topic(s) which critically appraises two papers that were funded by PC and written by employees at PC. The two papers were published in separate journals.  Our critically appraised topic (CAT) was peer reviewed…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Multiple complainants for a single article

    We received four letters of accusation on the same published article from 4 different email addresses (namely A, B, C, D) consecutively with the interval of each being 1 month.  The first letter of accusation identified several issues with the use and interpretation of statistics, and noted that no reference number was provided for the study’s ethics approval. In response the editorial o…
  • Case
    On-going

    Wrong article abstract published: corrigendum or retraction and republication?

    An author published an article in journal A. At the proofreading stage they were asked by the publisher to reduce the number of words in the abstract. After publication, the author indicated that they had inadvertently included the wrong abstract in the proofreading correction step, supplying one which belonged to another article they had authored. The article is now published with the wrong ab…

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