- News
3rd World Conference on Research Integrity
The 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity is due to take place in Montréal, Canada between 5 - 8 May 2013. The conference will focus international attention on research integrity, responsible conduct of research, and publication of research. Attendees will have opportunities to learn the current state of worldwide progress on research integrity, discuss new challenges and… - News
Case Discussion: Ethics of non-active management of a control group
…fetal and maternal outcomes? Forum advice The Forum advised that this appears to be unethical research conduct and egregious violation of human ethics. Withholding known effective treatment for experimental purposes is not ethical in human subjects’ research. If there is a known effective treatment, the study cannot ethically be done, and any institutional review board would… - Case
Attempts to draw attention to potential duplicate publication
…owners’ attention to good practice as set out in the COPE guidelines and the Code of Conduct for Editors. - The editor should also consider contacting the authors’ institutions directly.… - Case
Simultaneous publication
…electronic file, a summary of the key findings and conclusions of this investigation are shown below by directly copying appropriate statements from the response. “The Group was informed by (the authors) that the two studies—were conducted in two consecutive time periods with completely different patients, and the number of cell lines used were not the same.” “The Group saw some raw data supplied by… - Case
Unauthorised use of data
A multicentre study conducted with a working group involving 38 centres was published in our journal. Author A was a member of one of the centres and was listed as the 13th author in the article. Another colleague (author B) who is not a coauthor and who works in the same department as author A, contacted our journal and claimed that the data from the centre used by author A in the study were… - Webform
COPE Asia-Pacific Workshop, Melbourne 2020
…2020 Asia-Pacific Conference The ISMTE 2020 Asia-Pacific Conference, 14-15 September 2020, is a fantastic opportunity for COPE members. ISMTE have kindly arranged for COPE members to attend the conference at the ISMTE member rate. If you wish to take advantage of this offer, - News
WCRI 2019: Responsible authorship panel
…by an editor attempting to resolve a dispute prior to publishing a paper. From the institutional perspective there is a need for clear definitions and criteria of authorship at the institutional level, governed by national codes of ethical conduct, for a research integrity officer to effectively investigate a complaint. A clear process and procedure must also be followed, and all involved… - Guidelines
Ethics toolkit for a successful editorial office
…A COPE guide To help ensure the integrity of the scholarly record and the publication process, editorial offices should define and implement best practices in publication ethics. This COPE guide is a comprehensive toolkit that explains expected ethical practices in scholarly publishing, and highlights resources for editorial offices to develop their codes of ethical conduct and… - Case
Lack of patient consent for a case report, patient confidentiality
…awaiting advice from COPE before deciding whether or not to proceed with peer review. - Does this case meet the criteria laid out in the COPE code of conduct to publish without patient consent: “It may be possible to publish without consent if the report is important to public health (or is in some other way important);… - Case
Informed consent
A group of researchers are conducting a study of whether women aged 65 to 69 years will accept screening for breast cancer. They plan to invite these women for screening in the same way as they invite younger women for screening but will not know that they are part of a research study. The authors want advice on whether journals would be willing to publish their results, despite the fact that… - Case
Use of secondary data without proper attribution
…provided a letter from the university registrar that they had obtained proper approval to conduct this study, and data collection was four years ago, not six years ago. Only then did the journal realise that this was a study conducted using a secondary dataset from the institution. In the paper, the authors described in detail the recruitment process and calculation of sample size, as if they… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 9 September 2015: Who “owns” peer review?
…services like this as a way to regain control over their reviews and so may be keen to sign-up and provide their data. Journals, on the other hand, often conduct confidential review processes and wish to restrict the sharing of comments exchanged during peer-review. Academics may view services like this as a way to regain control over their reviews and so may be keen to sign-up and provide their… - Event
ISMTE Asian-Pacific Conference
…know'.COPE members can attend the conference at the ISMTE member rate. If you wish to take advantage of this offer, contact us for the code. Following on from the success of previous workshops in Singapore and Beijing, COPE is delighted to announce another - News
Ethical oversight focus
…conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and of business/marketing practices.” This core practice reflects a professional consensus that publication ethics encompasses not only the integrity, reliability, and merit of published research itself, but also an underlying consideration and respect for the subjects of… - Case
The undeclared competing interest
An author wrote us a letter for publication on the importance of doing research on a long established drug. He did not declare any competing interest, but we were later informed that he was conducting a trial of the drug funded by a pharmaceutical company. We approached him and asked him to declare his competing interest. Have we done the right thing? Should we do more than simply ask him to… - Case
The incomplete retraction
A journal published a paper several years ago that subsequently had to be retracted, on the advice of the university where the work had been conducted. The university provided no further details but promised to do so. Two years later they confirmed that the paper should be retracted, but gave no information on exactly what had gone wrong and whether anybody had been punished. Subsequently, one… - Event
ISMPP European Meeting: COPE member discount
The International Society for Medical Publication Professionals’ (ISMPP) 2017 European Meeting theme is ‘The evolving role of publication professionals in a multi-stakeholder environment’. The meeting will have various networking opportunities and informative sessions, including a panel discussion on ‘Sharing… - Research
Authors’ awareness of publication ethics: An international survey 2009
…ignorance rather than wilful deceit. Publication ethics are rarely taught. We are conducting an international survey to measure the level of awareness of key ethical issues in publishing amongst a large sample of currently active researchers submitting articles to several BMJ journals. We intend this study to be one of the largest undertaken involving a variety of ethical issues on authorship, conflicts… - Event
ISMPP European Meeting 2019
ISMPP is offering a 10% registration discount to COPE members for its 2019 European Meeting, Scientific Communications in a Fast-Paced World: Fighting Fit for the Future, 22-23 January, in London, UK. Learn more about the meeting at www.ismpp.org/european-meeting, and enter EU19COPE10 in the “Discount Code” field when you…