Research Integrity is a Must for Scientific Leadership

Guest author Anna Carla Goldberg

I have been a scientist for most of my professional life but mentoring the next generation was, if not the most, one of the most important jobs in academia. Now that I am retired but an acting consultant, I have undertaken the mission of helping a whole community of dedicated colleagues spread the word on scientific integrity and research compliance. 

In science, as in life, to honesty, we must add trust and social responsibility, the hallmarks of true leadership.

So why is scientific integrity insistently highlighted in the more developed research communities worldwide? It has become clear that the principles or pillars upholding scientific endeavor and guaranteeing the quality of the knowledge produced are always honesty and the commitment to truth. Indeed, these principles lead to promising initiatives towards a better world, more far-reaching healthcare, a more sustainable environment, and a fair future accessible to all. In science, as in life, to honesty, we must add trust and social responsibility, the hallmarks of true leadership.

Honesty encompasses strict adherence to the best methods and procedures, solid statistical analysis, data protection, credit to others where due, and critical reviewing. Trust means sharing knowledge, acting with transparency, and collaborating with other researchers and teams, in different countries and across different areas. Social responsibility has become increasingly essential, including respect for diversity of gender, ethnicity, language, and education. Social responsibility also includes fully endorsing actions favoring sustainability and environmental protection. 

Institutions have an essential role in establishing research governance and scientific integrity with success. Undergraduate education and graduate mentoring, infrastructure to allow sustainable operations using good practices and to assist researchers in their project submissions, data handling, improved communication, and overall management are all necessary steps to guarantee the quality of the research being produced and informed to the public. The expectation that a researcher is capable of doing all the items mentioned above without institutional help is, to say the least, unfair. However, in be a true leader, researchers not only need to subscribe to the principles of scientific work with integrity but also be a partner in establishing the safeguards that lead to institutional credibility and trust in the science produced.

Our next generation of leaders in science must be the messengers of a trustworthy, as well as valuable and boundary-breaking science. 

I believe never has this issue been more pressing and urgent. The ever-increasing demand for improved practices is widening the gap between those countries that actively pursue research integrity and those that don´t. If one examines the Retraction Watch database, with already over 37,000 entries (as of November 2022), it is striking that the major reasons for these events are still overwhelmingly imaging manipulation, plagiarism, authorship issues, and even article duplication, all of which undermine the quality of research and trust in science.

These more common reasons are obvious misdemeanors, have been extensively called upon, and should be known by undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in general. Our next generation of leaders in science must be the messengers of a trustworthy, as well as valuable and boundary-breaking science. 

Texts, videos, and information are available in Portuguese at www.fagoldberg.com.br