- Case
Allegation of fraudulent publication
Journal A published a paper in 2002. In 2004 the Editor of Journal A was contacted by a reader, who expressed his doubts as to the integrity of one of the authors associated with the 2002 paper. The reader suggested that the author in question had been involved in the fraudulent publication of a paper published in Journal B in 2001. The reader had noted that the article published in Journal… - Case
Plagiarized figure
We received a review paper and it was accepted and published on our website. We then noticed that one of the figures had been copied from a paper published in another journal. Before publication, we asked the authors if the figures were original or if they needed references, and the authors responded that they were original. After confirmation of the similarity of one figure to a publish… - Case
Duplicate articles due to DOI reassignment
The editors of Journal C have found that 15 of their recent articles have been assigned slightly different DOIs in the Online First and the final issue versions. This arose from administrative problems with the publisher’s production process and has resulted in duplicated articles in both spaces, and there may be other duplicate articles due to reassigning different DOIs. The editors of… - Case
Potential peer reviewer misconduct
A journal received the recommendation of a peer reviewer which expressed doubts about the validity of some of the data in an article. The editor-in-chief got in touch directly with the author and mediated to have the data validated by an outside contributor. The authors responded by providing data validation by a colleague, who is now becoming a potential coauthor. The initial data were… - News
Conflicts of interest focus
…href="https://publicationethics.org/case/attempt-supress-legitimate-scientific-results">case 15-15), consequences of allowing a peer reviewer with a conflict of interest to continue reviewing a paper (case 10-34), and editors with conflicts of interest (e.g., cases 11-04 and - Case
Suspected plagiarism
…study found a cut-off value of 15% to be useful (https://researchintegrityjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s410...). If the editor believes that there was no malicious intent on the part of the authors, an educational approach may be appropriate—for example, if the authors are junior… - News
In the news: January 2021
…-ever-research-integrity-survey-flounders-universities-refuse-cooperate" target="_blank">Dutch National Survey on research integrity, planned since 2016, closed on December 7 but prior to that, had only a 15% response from the 40,000 targeted participants. Some universities declined to participate, citing methodological weaknesses in the survey as well as… Publication and research ethics related to geopolitical issues
…="https://www.stm-publishing.com/research-square-companys-position-on-the-crisis-in-ukraine/">Research Square Company's position on the crisis in Ukraine, 15 March 2022 Clarivate: Clarivate to cease all commercial activity in Russia, 12 March 2022 A BMJ editorial notes that it will continue to consider…- Event
COPE Forum: March 2023
…%3ESubmit%20a%20case%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fa%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%0A%3Cp%3EThe%20deadline%20to%20submit%20a%20case%20for%20this%20Forum%26nbsp%3Bis%3A%20Thursday%2024%20November%202022.%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%0A%2D%2D%3E--> Forum agenda On Thursday 23 March 2023 the COPE Forum will be held at 15:00-16:30pm (GMT / UTC) 1. Update on COPE activities Update on COPE activities by the Chair. - Case
The tortuous tale of a paper, a letter and an editorial
…eventually have a reply in journal X. On 15 July, the letter from Dr B was published in journal X, together with a strong rebuttal from Dr A. On 8 November, Dr B’s article was published in journal Y. No mention of either his letter or Dr A’s response in journal X was made, and the editor of journal Y had seen neither piece of correspondence. The editor of journal X complained to his colleagues at journal… - Case
How to deal with obvious but disclosed conflict of interest
We are dealing with a paper which contains an obvious but disclosed conflict of interest. The paper has two authors who are company employees (one is the CEO). The study does not directly involve their product (a medical device) but does directly involve the assessment of the broader medical service which it supports. The results of their study are favourable toward the company. All company aff… - Case
Letter to the editor and retraction notice
A Letter to the Editor was submitted to Journal A – this Letter contained major criticisms of a paper previously published in Journal A, in particular of the statistical analysis underpinning the conclusions and the study design, and called for its retraction. The Editor sent the Letter out for peer review and some revisions were made by the authors. Based on both the content of the Letter and… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: November 2020
…href="https://thinkchecksubmit.org/" target="_blank"> Think. Check. Submit initiative will be involved in piloting the training modules and making them available to a diverse global audience. For all of these reasons, we will revisit this issue at the next COPE Forum on 15 December 2020 by discussing ‘Predatory publishing: next steps and where do we go from here?’. Stay… - Case
Image manipulation as a general practice
…permission). On a poll of the Forum, less than half of the delegates said that they screen for image manipulation. COPE has an eLearning module on image manipulation. Also, Mike Rosner has written extensively on this topic (Journal of Cell Biology 2004;166:11–15 http://jcb.rupress.org/content/166/1/11.full)… - Case
Authorship dispute during the review process
During the review process for a manuscript submitted to our journal, one of the reviewers alerted us that the manuscript appeared to be the work of a collaborator (Dr X) who was not listed as an author on the paper. It became clear that the manuscript’s corresponding author (Dr Y, affiliation A) was a postdoctoral researcher supervised by Dr X (previously at affiliation A, recently moved to aff… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: January 2024
…virtual Summit which brought together representatives from research bodies, publishers, researchers/sleuths, and universities from 15 countries. The participants from the Summit have committed to keep the discussion alive, and develop and execute plans, through working groups associated with each action. We encourage members to keep up to date on efforts to identify and stop fraudulent actions by paper… - News
In the news: November Digest
…development program for librarians, information professionals, researchers, and other professionals who work in a research-intensive environment throughout the world. https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2019/10/15… - News
In the news: December 2021
…research data collection. It includes recommendations that, during research design, consideration should be given to whether gender questions need to be included and, if they do, nonbinary genders should be explicitly included. In this - Case
Requesting authorship after publication
To support a recommendation to publish a correction listing Dr H in an acknowledgment (not as an author), the editors sent the institution the following post from Retraction Watch, which describes a similar situation. The institution agreed with this… Job vacancy: COPE content writer
…Council. The successful candidate should also be detail oriented and committed to meeting tight deadlines. Preference will be given to those with a strong writing portfolio and relevant work experience. This is a freelance role of up to 15 hours per month. Pay = £30 per hour. COPE is a virtual organisation and the role is based from home. Most meetings are conducted virtually but expenses will be…