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ABSTRACT
Virtually all of the scholarly literature on responsible conduct in research (RCR) focuses on the integrity of scientists – including why scientists misbehave, and how to improve training and enhance compliance with institutional and federal policies and regulations to prevent research misconduct. What this literature does not yet address is the integrity of those responsible for research administration. This article explores the responsible conduct of research administration and the potential for administrative misconduct. I highlight ways in which a lack of integrity in research administration can jeopardize the progress of science, the careers of researchers, and the reputation of institutions just as much as research misconduct can. Accordingly, I call for policies and appropriate oversight of research administration that are on par with policies governing research misconduct by scientists.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Beyond the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Science Foundation has an independent Office of Inspector General charged with “promoting efficiency and effectiveness in agency programs and for preventing and detecting fraud, waste, and abuse” (NSF OIG Citationn.d.).
2. What does or ought to count as an “unresolved” conflict of interest is not clarified.
3. We shall set aside for another time an exploration of the adequacy of these model and sample policies and procedures to produce the intended consequences. Note that in 2000, ORI produced a report analyzing “156 institutional policies that had already been reviewed and accepted by ORI as being in compliance with the regulation but were known to include provisions that go beyond the regulatory requirement” (CHPS Consulting, p. i). Findings demonstrate variance with respect to many key issues, suggesting that those institutional policies insufficient to qualify for inclusion in the study may do a worse job promoting scientific integrity.
4. Examples are abundant in the pages of The Chronicle of Higher Education.
5. The recent challenges at Laurentian University in Canada are a case in point (Lamothe Citation2021).
6. There are parallels here with debates about whether universities or local law enforcement ought to handle allegations of sexual misconduct. One contention is that universities might be more concerned about Clery Act statistics than about the safety and well-being of students – revealing institutional priorities and reflecting an institutional culture that is corrupt and self-serving. See, e.g., the resources provided by AAUW (Citationn.d.).
7. See also Morreim (Citation2021).
8. Publicly available court documents allege that an administrator at one campus of the State University of New York changed that campus’ Research Misconduct policy to put herself in charge of the policy (she is the person who revised the policy and the change from OM to IO puts her in charge because she is IO) and then back-dated the policy to have it apply in a case that started months earlier (Documents 10, 15, and 16 from https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/DocumentList?docketId=rwV1dp2ZcfQQDMpEceWtWw==&display=all&co urtType = Kings%20County%20Supreme%20Court&resultsPageNum = 1).
9. Some authorship disputes actually involve plagiarism. The documents in the case referenced in Note 8 allege there was no charge other than the word plagiarism in the formal charge letter (Document #13), and that no response was ever provided to the respondent’s requests for specifics about what was allegedly plagiarized.
10. Another point from the case referenced in Note 8. The documents in the case allege that the three inquiry (and, later, investigation) committee members commented during their interview of the complainant that “we know you” and they outlined a plan for retraction (Document 82) – before ever having met the respondent.
11. In the same case, the respondent alleged that the faculty governance was sufficiently concerned about the campus’ failure to follow its own policy that it asked the system chancellor to intervene (see Document #41 from the case referenced in Note 8). According to the court filings, the system chancellor elected not to intervene. The court documents allege that the respondent was cleared of the plagiarism “charge.”
12. Almost exactly this chain of events is alleged to have occurred at Duke University (Goldberg Citation2015).
13. Officials at the University of California at San Francisco are alleged to have targeted a whistleblower that reported financial irregularities in the medical school (Kaplan and Stolberg Citation2021). Then Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the UCSF medical school, Dr. David Kessler, was initially dismissed as Dean for his report; the University eventually apologized after an independent audit confirmed Kessler’s report of funds mismanagement.
14. This claim is not intended to suggest that institutions are necessarily in conflict with scientists, although individual bad actors and/or a morally bankrupt institutional culture in the research management office may increase that likelihood. Where risk-management is involved, the institution’s legal department may favor institutional interests and institutional reputation in its risk-benefit calculation about whether to do the right thing, thus implicating university administration and its board of governors.
15. It bears emphasizing that there is also a massive asymmetry in resources at play; engaging counsel in the execution or defense of administrative misconduct typically will incur no financial cost for the RIO and institution, but respondents often do not have the resources for their defense or appeal.
16. The Laurentian case is complex, but Lamothe (Citation2021) provides a balanced overview.
17. For a detailed recitation of the allegations of abuse of power, dereliction of duty, and failure of accountability in the case referenced in Notes 8, 9, 10, and 11, we recommend reading Documents #1, 48, 82, 83, and 72 from the court’s public docket.
18. Given the conceptual and theoretical work advanced in the present paper, a next logical step would be to explore the phenomenon of research administration misconduct empirically.
19. The handbook is at https://ori.hhs.gov/rio-handbook; information about the role of the Research Integrity Officer is at https://ori.hhs.gov/video-role-rio; and specific training for RIO’s through a boot camp is detailed at https://ori.hhs.gov/rio-boot-camp.
20. A survey of 493 academic institutions (including academic medical centers) conducted between 1982–1984 showed that, at that time, some researchers and institutions were uncomfortable with any sort of requirement for formal rules and policies to govern institutional response to allegations of research misconduct. While 116 of the responding institutions had established written policies, and another 253 institutions were in the process of developing them, fully one quarter (124) of the institutions “had no guidelines at all and no plans to develop any” (Greene et al. Citation1986, p. 2). Accordingly, we expect that there will be institutional resistance to the recommendations we offer here. But as our analysis makes clear, misconduct in research administration is a serious though underexplored form of administrative misconduct that threatens our very institutions of knowledge.
21. Moreover, conflicts of interest would likely be more difficult to avoid locally and/or regionally.