Preprint/Consultation: “Cooperation And Liaison Between Universities and Editors (CLUE): Recommendations on Best Practice”

The following article was recently shared on bioRxiv.
Title
Cooperation And Liaison Between Universities And Editors (CLUE): Recommendations on Best Practice
Authors
Elizabeth Wager
Sideview
Sabine Kleinert
The Lancet
Michele Garfinkel
EMBO, Heidelberg
Volker Bahr,
Charite, Berlin
Ksenija Bazdaric
University of Rijeka, Croatia
Michael Farthing
University of Sussex* (until 2016, now at University College London)
Chris Graf
Wiley/Committee on Publication Ethics
Zoë Hammatt
Office of Research Integrity, Rockville, MD (until 2016, now at Z Consulting)
Lyn Horn
Stellenbosch University (now at University of Cape Town), South Africa
Susan King
Rockefeller University Press
Debra Parrish
Parrish Law Offices
Bernd Pulverer
EMBO Journal
Paul Taylor
RMIT University
Gerrit van Meer
Utrecht University
Source
via bioRxiv
Abstract

Journals and research institutions have common interests regarding the trustworthiness of research publications but their specific roles and responsibilities differ. These draft recommendations aim to address issues surrounding cooperation and liaison between journals and institutions about possible and actual problems with reported research.
The proposals will be discussed at various meetings including the World Conference on Research Integrity in May 2017. We will also consider comments and suggestions posted on this preprint.
The main recommendations are that: — National registers of individuals or departments responsible for research integrity at institutions should be created; — Institutions should develop mechanisms for assessing the validity of research reports that are independent from processes to determine whether individual researchers have committed misconduct; — Essential research data and peer review records should be retained for at least 10 years; — While journals should normally raise concerns with authors in the first instance, they also need criteria to determine when to contact the institution before, or at the same time as, alerting the authors in cases of suspected data fabrication or falsification to prevent the destruction of evidence; — Anonymous or pseudonymous allegations made to journals or institutions should be judged on their merit and not dismissed automatically; — Institutions should release relevant sections of reports of research trustworthiness or misconduct investigations to all journals that have published research that was the subject of the investigation.

Direct to Full Text Preprint (16 pages; PDF)

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