December 2022
Dr Trevor Lane, COPE Trustee and Council member, was invited to deliver a presentation introducing COPE’s mission and resources at the 2022 Forum on Good Publication Practice, held virtually on 2 December 2022. Hosted by the University of Macau, China, and the Macau Pharmacology Association, the forum was attended by authors, editors, reviewers, and publishers, as well as delegates of two concurrent conferences (the 4th Sino-CPLP Symposium on Natural Products and Biodiversity Resources and the International Forum on Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry).
The purpose of the 3-hour event was to provide an update of efforts to detect and prevent publication malpractices and maintain the integrity of research, reporting, reviewing, and publication. Also presenting at the forum were Matt Hodgkinson (UKRIO, COPE, and EASE), who spoke on common publication ethics issues in China; Maria Kowalczuk (Frontiers), who gave a publisher’s perspective of research integrity and publication quality; Jing Wang (Radboud University, The Netherlands), who proposed new quality criteria for journal ranking; and Hongmei Zhu (3rd People’s Hospital of Chengdu and Southwest Jiaotong University, China), who discussed artificial intelligence in plagiarism detection.
From ‘Publish or Perish’ to ‘Publish and Nourish’
The COPE presentation was titled “Creating a culture of publication integrity together”, which is COPE’s new motto this year to mark its 25th anniversary and the opening of COPE membership to universities and research institutes. The talk concentrated on the joint role that multiple stakeholders, including peer-reviewed journals and research institutes, have in creating a positive research environment, culture, and climate.
The key message was that the shared common goal should be to move away from the traditional punitive ‘Publish or perish’ culture, and also the newer but still researcher-centred and metrics-based ‘Publish and flourish’ culture, towards a ‘Publish and nourish’ culture that values quality over quantity and promotes research (not journal) impact. Appropriate assessments and incentives should aim to encourage reporting transparency, Open Research/Science, and sustainable societal benefit, including diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The culture of publication integrity, GPP, Macau
The presentation summarised some pervasive research, publication, and authorship integrity problems such as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism; gift, guest, and ghost authorship; and knowingly using predatory journals and unethical editorial services such as paper mills. COPE’s current efforts in combatting paper mills were highlighted, including guidance on ‘Systematic manipulation of the publication process’, a 2022 webinar on ‘Managing paper mills’, and a joint research report with STM titled ‘Paper mills’.
Related resources
- Systematic manipulation of the publication process, COPE guidance
- Managing paper mills, COPE webinar 2022
- Paper mills research report, COPE and STM research project 2022