- News
Case Discussion: Withdrawal of paper at proof stage
…as authorship, intellectual property, maximising reproducibility and minimising bias, withdrawals/corrections, complaints/appeals, business practices, and any fees and waivers. In fact, publishers and editors should check they adhere to the all 10 COPE Core Practices, which are aligned with the 16 international - Case
Concern about reporting of a trial and also its DSMB
We received a paper reporting a trial. There has only been one previous trial of this intervention in this condition that we know of (which was also done by these investigators). There were substantial issues with the reporting of that trial but the end result, as reported by them, favoured the intervention. The trial we received, presumably approved after that result had come out, had… - Case
Mislabelling/duplicate images
…papers. On the poster article, because it involved 10 images, I also plan to include, with the correction, a statement to the effect that a committee was appointed by author X’s institute to investigate the mislabelling and that they found no evidence of malicious intent (I’m wary of the wording I use here). I also want to reprint the poster and send a copy of it to each of our print… - Case
Misattributed authorship and unauthorized use of data
…expression of concern. Unauthorized use of data came up as a prime issue in a recent study of the re-classification of the COPE cases in the past 10 years. Also, the Montreal statement on research integrity in cross boundary research collaborations came out of this year’s World Conference on Research Integrity ( - Forum discussion topics
Claiming institutional affiliations
…-in-a-name-how-false-author-affiliations-are-damaging-academic-research/">What’s in a name? How false author affiliations are damaging academic research Vivienne C. Bachelet, LSE Blog Misrepresentation of institutional affliations: The results from an exploratory case study of Chilean authors Research article Octopus… - Case
Suspect author
Author A has published approximately 150 original articles since ~1994, with ~100 on one particular topic. Since some of these events were up to 16 years ago, and there are no formal records from then relating to these studies, the only information we have is the memory of the editors of the affected journals in post at the time. According to their accounts, suspicions were aroused over the val… - Seminars and webinars
Inclusive language: policing or progressive?
…recommendations The diversity and innovation paradox PNAS research article Finding pathways to equity recommendation from Society Publishers' Coalition … Facilitation and Integrity FAQ
…style="text-decoration:none;">[email protected] with any other queries. COPE resources are available under a CC BY-NC-ND license, and thus the resources may be used by journals and publishers regardless of whether they are COPE members. A reference to COPE materials or COPE standards on the journal’s web pages does not, by itself, imply COPE membership. Therefore, it is…- News
Case Discussion: Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval
…="https://publicationethics.org/files/General_Approach_To_Publication_Ethics_For_Editorial_Office.pdf" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">General Approach to Publication Ethics for the Editorial Office”. Offices of non-COPE journals can align their policies and procedures with the 10 COPE Core Practices and link to COPE resources (but not reproduce or copy them or misuse the COPE logo). They… Projects Funded
…guidance about this. Anecdotal evidence suggests that editors may be reluctant to retract articles because of concerns about litigation or uncertainty about the correct procedures. We are therefore examining retractions to understand journals’ current practices and any difficulties faced by editors. We are examining all retractions published on Medline in the last 10 years and categorising them according…- News
Case Discussion: Data fabrication in a rejected manuscript
…href="https://mailchi.mp/publicationethics/data-and-reproducibility2019">October 2019 Digest newsletter with a focus on Data and Reproducibility and a summary of our European Seminar in Leiden in Deborah Poff's letter from the COPE Chair. We also share the new COPE Authorship Discussion Document and announce our November Forum discussion on "Artificial intelligence in decision making". We say goodbye and thank you to six of our Council members who have come to the end of… - News
In the news: May 2020
…latest Forum discussion topic is "What peer review means in the arts, humanities and social sciences" and we welcome comments on our website.With a roundup of recent publication ethics news around authorship, data sharing and COVID-19. Read May Digest: Authorship … - Case
Concerns over research by an author in numerous, separate publications
The authenticity of the content of numerous publications by Author K has been questioned by ‘concerned researchers’ in an anonymous email sent to the Editor of Journal A in December 2009. The email noted that author K had been publishing articles in numerous journals that “report remarkable findings that watching humorous films, drinking deep-sea water, exposure to road traffic, cell-pho… - News
Facilitation & Integrity 2023, a year in review
…F&I cases are classified by the concern raised by the presenter. So far in 2023 there have been 10 types of concern which have attracted five or more cases. These are: Handling of retractions and expressions of concern (20 cases). Concerns about Integrity of published work, including potential manipulation of data or images (14 cases)… - Forum discussion topics
What does peer review mean in the arts, humanities and social sciences?
…The recent hoax article problem with respect to fake articles on diversity, inclusivity and identity politics also challenged the merit, quality and legitimacy of the scope and standards of some types of journals, including those that publish feminist scholarship. Recently, this… - Forum discussion topics
Bias in peer review
…class="resource-download-inline__type"> Presentation Bias in peer review presentation PPTX 10 MB The ethics of audit and research
…not been subject to any kind of scrutiny before despatch, because it was for the purposes of audit. It caused a great deal of distress to recipients. In Australia, the term quality assurance is used. This includes 10 different processes, such as process mapping. Even health service research can be applied in a quality assurance manner. There are some tricky issues…- News
Allegations of Misconduct webinar summary, April 2019
…patients. There is no reason that the original paper could not have included the results of Tests A, B and C on those same patients. This would be “Salami Slicing”. Salami publication:Definitions and examples Vesna Šupak Smolčić. Biochemia Medica. 2013;23(3):137-141 Nancy Chescheir Q: What… Subcommittees and working groups
…National Centre for Transgender Health) Robyn Speer (Luminoso) Back to top Conference proceedings Established in 2022. Many COPE members publish both journals and books, and wonder what are the similarities and differences with conference proceedings. A number of these members reference…- News
A vision for a more trans-inclusive publishing world: guest article
…design, advocacy, and research. She helped draft the Association for Computing Machinery’s (ACM) name change policy: the first such policy to be formally adopted by a major publisher. Her article in Nature advocating for more trans inclusive name change policies in academic…