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COPE webinar: Enhancing partnerships of institutions and journals

Cooperation between institutions and journals

July 2023

For some years, COPE has been discussing the fundamental relationship between publication ethics and research ethics, publication ethics being part of research and research publishing. COPE has recently launched membership for selected, invited universities and institutes, and will open up this category of membership more generally later this year. By opening its membership in this way, COPE hopes to bring more people together to help educate and promote an understanding of the principles of publication ethics from the ground up. These collaborations will help us solve the publication ethics problems we share, and promote integrity in research publishing better, fostering a culture of responsibility for the integrity of the literature.

The speakers in this webinar looked at the issues around the relationships between editors/publishers and institutions. After the presentations, speakers answered questions from attendees.

Watch webinar

 

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The session was moderated by Nancy Chescheir. Nancy introduced the speakers and moderated the question and answer segment.

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Cooperation and Liaison between Universities and Editors (CLUE) guidelines

Time on recording : 02:15-13:25

Dr Sabine Kleinert discussed the problems publishers have liaising with institutions when investigating potential misconduct, and the different perspectives of publishers and institutions. Sabine went on to share the Cooperation and Liaison between Universities and Editors (CLUE) guidelines which include recommendations for institutions and editors when investigating potential misconduct. Sabine reflected on the 2022 survey of UK universities which aimed to understand the barriers in implementing CLUE guidelines and the problems universities have when they try to contact publishers.

Dr Sabine Kleinert is Deputy Editor at The Lancet. She is a member of the senior management team of The Lancet Group with responsibilities for research integrity, publication ethics, and open access policies. She served as Vice-Chair of COPE from 2006 to March 2012 and was involved in conferences on research integrity from their beginning in 2007. She is a member of the governing board of the World Conferences on Research Integrity Foundation and was co-chair of the 7th World Conference on Research Integrity, Cape Town, South Africa, 2022. Sabine qualified as a medical doctor in Germany and trained as a paediatrician and paediatric cardiologist in the UK, Belgium, Australia, the USA, and Australia.

The issues will be discussed further at the World Congress on Research Integrity 2024 in Athens.

Enhancing Partnerships of Institutions and Journals Working Group - overview

Time on recording : 13:35-35:48

Susan Garfinkel talked about what happens on the university side, in the US, and how the working group are trying to expand on the CLUE Guidelines. Susan explained the process the institution follows when an allegation is made which can involve a federal agency, one of which is the Office of Research Integrity (ORI).The challenges institutions face are confidentiality requirements, groups working on different timelines, and who journals should contact. Three US Research Integrity Officers (RIOs) set up a working group to discuss key topics and develop best practices. Both RIOs and journal editors experience similar problems in interactions with each other and the working group recommended actions for both institutions and journals to improve the processes. The recommendations have been published in JAMA and are open to comments.

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COPE guidelines: Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity cases

Time on recording: 36:28-53:08

Marie Soulière summarised the 2012 COPE guidelines Cooperation between research institutions and journals on research integrity cases and highlighted some of the changes that will be implemented in the current revision. Marie then talked about four major points that are currently open for discussion before finalising the revised guidelines (please share your comments):

  1. Who at institutions handles or mediates authorship disputes? What is the best way to handle these issues?
  2. Use of words by institutions and referred to by journals can be split into two areas: 'Integrity' and 'misconduct' in cases of fraudulent behaviours, falsification, manipulation and plagiarism; 'validity' and 'reliability' of research for cases where there are concerns that don't allow validation of conclusions, data or that might warrant corrections, retractions which would typically apply to cases of honest errors, issues of replication or misleading text that needs to be edited. 
  3. To what extent can institutions share information regarding investigations? What is reasonable to share to move investigations on?
  4. Can and should institutions review an individual's entire publication record if they have committed serious misconduct. As well as being useful to the institution itself, this would alert other employers and publishers.

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Participant questions

Time on recording: 53:22-1:22:20

Following the presentations participants asked questions and made comments which were answered by the speakers: 

  • What should a journal do if an institution has contacted a journal to identify a problem with one of their researchers? Should the publisher automatically withdraw all papers by the researcher or assess each paper individually?
  • For journals it would be incredibly useful to receive institutional input that confirms concerns with accuracy and validity of the data in the article regardless of culpability or intent. We rarely need to know the latter in order to make an editorial decision on the cases to correct the published record.
  • University response varies when dealing with authorship disputes versus research misconduct. Very few details are provided for authorship queries and minimal findings are shared. How can we request universities to share more information about how they came to decisions because journals are often left to deal with the author who did not get credit. Any recommendations?
  • Is there any way organisations such as COPE can ask the major publishers to implement a standard approach around retractions so that self-reported article retractions are clearly visible? This may encourage authors to report honest errors more.
  • Should we develop guidelines specifically looking at image integrity or should they be considered part of guidelines for any investigation?
  • At what stage would journals find it beneficial to be informed about misconduct investigations, and why would it benefit them to know before the end of an investigation? Given the constraints of GDPR journals would only be contacted once an investigation was concluded and allegations upheld, in other words, when we needed to request a paper retraction or erratum.

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