UK universities compliance with the Concordat to Support Research Integrity: findings from cross-sectional time-series
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Ethical Issues, Legal Issues, Science and Medical Education, Science Policy
- Keywords
- research integrity, misconduct, universities, UK
- Copyright
- © 2019 Wager
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. UK universities compliance with the Concordat to Support Research Integrity: findings from cross-sectional time-series. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27622v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27622v1
Abstract
Background. The Concordat to Support Research Integrity published in 2012 recommends that UK research institutions should provide a named point of contact to receive concerns about research integrity (RI). The Concordat also requires institutions to publish annual RI statements.
Objective. To see whether contact information for a staff member responsible for RI was readily available from UK university websites and to see how many universities published annual RI statements.
Methods. UK university websites were searched in mid-2012, mid-2014 and mid-2018. The availability of contact details for RI inquiries, other information about RI and, specifically, an annual RI statement, was recorded.
Results. The proportion of UK universities publishing an email address for RI inquiries rose from 23% in 2012 (31/134) to 55% in 2018. The same proportion (55%) published at least one annual RI statement in 2018, but only 3 provided statements for all years from 2012/13. There was great variation in the titles used for the staff member with responsibility from RI which made searching difficult.
Conclusion. Over 6 years after the publication of the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, nearly half of UK universities are not complying with all its recommendations and do not provide contact details for a staff member with responsibility for RI or an annual statement.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.