Scientists aren't above cheating to make their research appear more attractive – but they will be caught out, writes CONOR O'CARROLL
SCIENCE IS BASED on trust, in that one assumes that researchers are in the pursuit of knowledge and truth. However, scientists do not always act to these noble standards. The term “research integrity” has evolved to cover a wide range of less than acceptable practices. The three commonly accepted areas are fabrication, falsification and plagiarism.
Fabrication is when results are invented to suit a particular hypothesis. A good example is that of Piltdown Man, a skull found in 1912 purporting to be that of an unknown form of early man. It was later shown that it was a modern human skull with the jaw of an orang-utan. A recent case is that of the Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk, who claimed to have created human embryonic stem cells by cloning. The data was fabricated.
Falsification is when existing data is manipulated to demonstrate a particular effect.
Plagiarism is where another person’s ideas, words or results are presented as one’s own without giving credit. At the soft end, this can be due to laziness by simply copying text but omitting to credit the original author. One Chinese academic journal has found that 31 per cent of papers submitted had unoriginal material. However, there is a cultural tradition in China of students copying their tutors.
The issue of integrity in research goes to the heart of the scientific method itself. Science is based on the reproducibility of results. This means that if someone makes a claim for some new phenomenon, they can be sure that other research teams will immediately attempt to reproduce the same results. It will become clear very quickly if a false claim has been made.
A lack of research integrity can have serious consequences. Trofim Denisovich Lysenko was an agricultural experimentalist in the Soviet Union during the Stalinist period. He advanced theories of crop improvement based purely on environmental effects, which was in keeping with communist ideology, and his work was endorsed by the state. The study of genetics in crops was suppressed, and scientists who pursued this area were persecuted. Worse still, the false science that Lysenko propagated was used in agricultural planning on a national scale; the crops subsequently failed, which led to famine.
Research integrity is dealt with in a variety of ways across the world. The US has the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), which carries out investigations into misconduct. Sanctions can be extremely severe – a researcher could be barred from accessing federal funding, which could effectively end their career. A study by the ORI estimates that there may be three integrity incidents per 100 researchers per year in the US; this is more than those reported. These include using software to eliminate data that does not fit the theory, and falsifying preliminary data in order to obtain a research grant. In Europe, apart from Scandinavia, Germany and the UK, there is little or no national regulation on research integrity.
In Ireland, universities have their own internal good-practice guidelines and mechanisms to deal with these issues. However, given its importance, along with major national investments in research, it was recognised by the vice presidents and deans of research that a national system should be in place to deal with research integrity. Irish universities are now working with funding agencies and the Royal Irish Academy to develop a robust national system. They have also been part of an international project led by the European Science Foundation that has just published a new code of conduct for researchers. This now represents agreement across 30 countries on a set of principles and priorities for self-regulation of the research community.
This is a complex issue to manage as the researchers involved are usually employees of a university, and their research may be funded by a variety of national and international bodies. The people best placed to report incidents are often junior group members. It is hard for them to be a whistleblower when it may damage their career prospects.
There are many motives for such behaviour: career pressure, money or ideology. Researchers must win competitive grants in order to carry out their work. It can be attractive to make claims that will give them an advantage. Once funded, they are then under pressure to produce new results. Alternatively, scientists might believe their theory, and want to ensure they get the “right” data.
Research integrity brings out the strength of reproducibility as one of the main principles of the scientific method. You can fool all of the people but only for a short time; you will be found out. Ultimately, the strength of scientific method ensures that abuses come to light.
Appropriate regulation can provide an early warning system and encourage those who may be tempted to think twice.
Conor O’Carroll is director of research at the Irish Universities Association