- Event
Peer review week
19-23 September 2022 "Research integrity: creating and supporting trust in research" is the theme of this year's Peer Review Week. Peer Review Week is a community-led yearly global virtual event celebrating the essential role that peer review plays in maintaining research quality. Peer Review Week celebrates the value of peer review that brings together… - News
New Discussion Document: Addressing ethics complaints from complainants who submit multiple issues
…="https://publicationethics.org/resources/discussion-documents/cope-forum-4-december-2013-how-should-journal-deal-persistent">how a journal should deal with peristent complainers (4 December 2013), in view of the complexities inherent in investigation of complaints from anonymous “whistle blowers” and, specifically, in response to requests from our members. COPE welcomes feedback on this document and we encourage journal editors and publishers to comment (whether or not… - Event
Developing Young and Established Journals – Management Planning
Run by KnowledgeE with Pippa SmartWorkshop endorsed by EASE (the European Association of Science Editors)Objective: By the end of this workshop editors should have an outline plan for developing their journal to increase visibility, quality and impact.Target Audience: This workshop is aimed at editors already experienced in managing their… - News
New! Discussion document on Consent for Publishing Medical Case Reports
COPE has published a new discussion document ‘COPE guidance on best practice for consent for publishing medical case reports’. This discussion document aims to lay out the principles that a consent form should generally include, and to collect examples of sample forms so that editors can develop a form that suits their purpose. You can read the discussion document here: - Event
COPE Australia Seminar
…is themed "Levers for transparency: from funding through research to publication". The seminar will look at the various ways transparency can be promoted in research from the perspective of the funder, institution, researcher and publisher, exploring new ideas and ways to promote transparency now and into the future.… - Event
Scholarly summit, 2020
Deborah Kahn, COPE Council, will share our recent study into publication issues in the arts, humanities, and social sciences and COPE's work in these disciplines at this summit for editors and society partners of Taylor & Francis. The Summit will be a day of discussions exploring the theme ‘Fit for the future: Building… - News
Information sharing about intentional research misconduct
…COPE partner with UKRI on fact-finding workshop COPE and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) are co-hosting a fact-finding workshop on sharing information between journals (publishers), research organisations and funders, where that information is about allegations or cases of intentional research misconduct. - News
A PLACE for publishers
Over the past few months we have been working with Crossref, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) to build a hub for publishers with limited resources or little experience, to easily discover resources from each of the… - Case
Consent from relatives for genetic tests
A paper described a problem of two women who wanted their fetuses to be tested for a genetic condition, but where in both cases their partners had refused to give consent. Should the journal publish such a paper without obtaining consent from the partners? The editors think not, but the authors are unconvinced.… - Event
EQUATOR seminar and annual lecture
…COPE is one of the sponsors of the following events: EQUATOR Seminar: Getting your trial published: CONSORT 2010 and other reporting guidelines Target audience: Clinical and non-clinical professionals involved in planning, conducting and publishing randomised trials in health research. Presenters include: Doug Altman, Sally Hopewell, Allison Hirst,… - Case
Unethical research
…were withdrawn from the study if their duodenal ulcer relapsed. The question is whether it is ethical to treat such patients with ranitidine or placebo rather than with H pylori eradication treatment. A gastroenterologist has advised me that he does not think it is. The paper makes no mention of ethics committee approval or informed consent. I have rejected the paper on… - Case
Anonymous information
We did contact the person (A) who was allegedly left off the paper, who confirmed that parts of our published paper are very similar to a Review he compiled internally for the institution where both authors worked. He also expressed surprise that this was brought to our attention in the described way. He did initially agree to pursue the matter but did not want us to reveal his identity. He… - Seminars and webinars
How to get started: COPE resources
…Presentation to PAMJE Annual Convention March 2023 COPE Council Member, Jigisha Patel, presented at the Philippines Association of Medical Journal Editors (PAMJE) Annual Convention discussing how COPE tools can be practically used to help journal editors address various ethical publication issues. Jigisha began by introducing COPE and COPE resources,… Thank You
Thank you for registering your interest in becoming a member of COPE. Your application will be processed and considered at the next Council meeting. If you have any queries about membership before then, please contact the COPE Administrator here.…COPE Privacy notice
…educate and advance knowledge in methods of safeguarding the integrity of the scholarly record for the benefit of the public". COPE is the data controller in respect of your personal data. This means we decide what data to collect and how it should be used. Further details on the purposes we collect your personal data for is included in this privacy notice, as well as how we safeguard your…- News
Letter from COPE Vice-Chair: October 2018
…Contemporary Trends and Issues in Research Misconduct. The summit provided an opportunity for all stakeholders in research and publication ethics to share their unique perspectives and issues. The focus was solutions that work across constituencies and stakeholders. Also, among the attendees of the Summit were COPE Treasurer, Dan Kulp, and… - Case
Ethical considerations in publishing conference papers
Journal X has recently received two manuscripts, which were previously published at a conference, with DOIs and publisher information. They contacted the authors with our concerns. Author A's manuscript was taken verbatim from their conference paper, yet they insisted that they own the copyright of the conference paper. They claim that they are free to re-submit the paper to Journal X,… - News
COPE survey
The results from the survey of COPE Members, which was carried out online recently, have been collated into a report which can be downloaded here (Download PDF, 645kb).… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…Prior publication and theses Research higher degree theses have traditionally been seen as part of the scholarly communications chain, and have been made available by university libraries in print and, latterly, online via institutional repositories. The issue we seek to address is whether or not work already publicly available in a thesis (whether in print or online, although…- Case
“Research” without ethics committee approval
Eighteen patients with a variety of symptoms and 10 controls had various measurements taken after being given an oral glucose load. Participants also had routine blood sampling and were put on a defined diet for three days. The authors did not consider it necessary to obtain ethics committee approval, but all participating subjects signed a consent form recording their agreement to take part…