US universities protest against research fraud transparency rules

Leading US universities are protesting against a Biden administration plan to toughen rules for federal research misconduct investigations, including making case details public, saying the process could unfairly tarnish institutions and scientists.

The government, through its Office of Research Integrity, has long followed a practice of handling allegations brought to it by either finding misconduct or taking no action. Under a regulatory change being pursued by the administration, the ORI would be given a new option of imposing no penalties but publicly disclosing its findings.

That idea seems problematic, said the Association of American Universities, the prestigious coalition of 69 of the nation’s most elite research institutions.

“As currently written, the regulations would allow ORI to release information that might not accurately reflect institutional findings and could damage the careers of co-authors or lab personnel who have not been found responsible for wrongdoing,” the AAU told Times Higher Education.

But others involved in matters of research integrity saw value in the idea. The proposed change at the ORI could force needed improvements in transparency, said one leading expert, Brian Nosek, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia who is also co-founder and director of the Centre for Open Science.

“Universities have strong incentives against releasing the outcomes of their misconduct investigations because they potentially affect the institution’s own reputation,” Professor Nosek said.

The Biden administration’s regulatory proposal reflects an attempt to modernise ORI rules for handling misconduct in federally funded research that have been in place for nearly two decades, amid steadily rising concerns about the quality of academic science. The top US funder of basic science, the National Institutes of Health, has seen annual research integrity allegations rise past 500 in the last few years, several multiples of the levels of a decade ago.

Much of the problem is attributed by experts to universities cultivating a needlessly high-pressure environment because they find it easier to evaluate research performance based on simple-to-measure indicators such as quantities of publications and grant awards.

Another university grouping, the Council on Governmental Relations, said it shared the AAU’s concerns about potential confidentiality violations arising from the ORI proposal. The proposed disclosure change seemed largely unnecessary, said Kristin West, director of research and regulatory reform at COGR – a university grouping that specialises in assessing federal regulations – because misconduct concerns often get made public anyhow through actions such as journal retractions. The risk of a general new ORI requirement for disclosing allegations, Ms West said, included violating privacy laws and tainting people who were not culpable.

Other potential problems contained in the administration’s planned changes to ORI procedures, Ms West said, including automatically advancing a proceeding from assessment to inquiry just because an institution has not completed its part of the assessment stage within 30 days; not letting institutions consider the defences of honest error or difference of opinion prior to the investigation stage; and a “hyper-formalisation” of the initial assessment of allegations of research misconduct, including a requirement to transcribe interviews.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com