The present situation of and challenges in research ethics and integrity promotion: Experiences in East Asia

ABSTRACT

As relatively new economies to the global research arena, East Asian nations have fully realized the importance of research integrity in recent decades. This article conducts document analysis to demonstrate and discuss the current situation of research integrity campaigns in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, nations that have similar cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. This article emphasizes the common situations faced by these three nations both individually and collectively. Based on a four-pillar framework, research integrity campaigns in these nations are making progress in terms of policies and regulations, institutional management, researchers’ education and training, and the handling of misconduct cases. Various issues and challenges have also emerged in this context, although these efforts may have had positive impacts on research communities in these three nations. Challenges associated with research integrity governance, institutional willingness, RCR instructor qualifications, the effectiveness of education, and the standardization of definitions of misconduct and noncompliance are also highlighted. The issues discussed in this article are expected to have implications for research communities and policy-makers in these three nations as well as in a global context.

KEYWORDS:

• International research
• misconduct in research
• research ethics
• research integrity
• responsible conduct of research
• science policy

Introduction

Research ethics and integrity are the foundation of research and have been recognized as serious concerns by the global scientific research community. As relatively new economies to the global research arena, East Asian nations have only fully recognized the importance of research ethics and integrity in recent decades. By reference to US regulations (Office of Science and Technology Policy 2000) and previous literature (e.g., Kalichman 2013; Resnik et al. 2015; Steneck 2006), these nations have also realized that the promotion of research ethics and integrity requires a long-term commitment, including the investment of resources. However, such a necessary yet painful realization has largely been a response to a pattern of incidents and scandals involving violations of research integrity, for example, Hwang Gate in Korea in 2006 (Gottweis and Kim 2009; Hon 2008), Obokata’s STAP cell scandal in Japan in 2014 (Mikami 2018), and the Sage peer review ring scandal in Taiwan (SAGE Publications 2014). All these high-profile cases have drawn not only harsh criticism from the local public but also the attention of global research communities. Other cases, such as those listed in the “Top 10 most highly cited retracted papers” and the “Leaderboard” of Retraction Watch, have also fueled the awareness of the need for and eagerness to change in academia. Therefore, East Asian governments and research communities have implemented large-scale, nationwide campaigns.

This article provides a detailed document analysis that attempts to illustrate the experiences associated with these recent campaigns in three East Asian economies, i.e., Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, all of which have similar cultural backgrounds and socioeconomic statuses. Not only does this article consider the comprehensive governance of research integrity, including the different roles played by the government, funding agencies, and universities/research institutes (Lee 2021a), but it also proposes a 4-pillar framework for the promotion of research ethics and integrity: (1) policies and regulations, (2) institutional management, (3) researchers’ education and training, and (4) misconduct case handling. The term “framework” is used intentionally because the entire framework is intended to achieve the promised goals of such campaigns and because the associated partnerships among government agencies, research institutions, and individual researchers have made a certain degree of progress (Chou 2020, 2021a, 2021b). While such efforts may have had positive impacts on research communities in the nations in question, various issues and challenges have also emerged. In addition to our use of the 4-pillar framework to organize our arguments, other topics that are important to the task of assessing the current situation of research integrity promotion, such as those identified by the SOPs4RI project (https://sops4ri.eu; Mejlgaard et al. 2020), may also be helpful in the following discussion.

This article first highlights the situation faced by each nation in the context of each frame, especially with respect to the governing policies and regulations that are applicable in each country. Subsequently, the relevant selective, cross-national challenges are discussed jointly in the context of each frame. In other words, this narrative overview does not follow the traditional IMRD style (i.e., introduction, method, the results, and discussion) but rather employs document analysis (primarily of government documents and reports, conference and journal articles that are available online) as its primary research method.

Several points are worth noting in this context. First, although these three nations have similar cultural backgrounds and have shared a traditional Chinese character system in the past or present, the terms used to translate the phrase “research ethics and integrity” vary across the languages used in these countries; thus, we preserve the terms originally used in individual documents and citations. For example, “academic ethics” is typically used in Taiwan as a general term that includes research ethics (with an emphasis on human/animal subject protection) and research integrity (with an emphasis on conducting good scientific research) (National Science and Technology Council 2019, 2020). In Korea, the term “research ethics” seems to be more comprehensive and is used more frequently in guidelines issued by the government (Lee and Kalichman 2016). In Japan, “research ethics” tends to be used in a narrow sense, referring to the norms, codes of conduct, and principles that researchers should follow and to the researchers’ obligation not to violate them, and is used in the context of education and training aiming at the prevention of misconduct and questionable research practices; “research integrity” is often used in the sense of conducting responsible research activities, including research ethics, and maintaining and improving a sound research environment. Regardless of the terms used in each country, the shared core value to which these terms refer lies in the foundation of credible research, appropriate research performance and expectations regarding the research profession.

Second, since the authors of this article are closely associated with the progress of these national campaigns, some of the following discussion is based on our observations, experiences, and conference presentations (such as presentations at the 4th Seoul Asia Pacific Research Integrity Network Conference in 2021) and thus may lack the full support of empirical evidence. Therefore, the views and opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the position of any government or institution. Finally, the purpose of this article is not to compare the (lack of) success achieved by these three nations but rather to highlight the common situations and challenges that they face both separately and jointly.

Frame 1: Research ethics- and integrity-related policies and regulations

Present situation

Clear policies and regulations are the first steps toward the promotion of research ethics and integrity. These measures demonstrate not only the government’s determination but also the need to allocate resources to actions in the context of each frame. The Taiwan National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), which serves as a major funding agency for all research projects nationwide, has implemented milestone policies and mandates for research institutions, universities, and colleges. In response to the Sage peer-review ring scandal, which led to the resignation of the Minister of Education in 2014, NSTC announced an amendment to its “Operation Guidelines for NSTC Research Project Grants” in 2017. This amendment required research institutions receiving subsidized research funding to formulate plans for the management and self-regulation of academic ethics, to designate or establish a special unit for the management of academic ethics, and to establish an education mechanism for academic ethics as well as standard operating procedures for handling cases of misconduct (the latest amendment effective as of 8 March 2022; see National Science and Technology Council 2022). Beginning in November 2019, NSTC announced additional amendments to the Academic Ethics Guidelines for Researchers (National Science and Technology Council 2019) and the Guidelines for Handling and Investigating Research Misconduct (National Science and Technology Council 2020). Those amendments were intended to supplement policies and regulations concerning research integrity and to facilitate synchronization between Taiwan and prominent research funding agencies in developed countries worldwide.

In Korea, following the Hwang scandal in 2005, the government took action by implementing policies intended to promote research ethics and integrity, including policies related to systems, budgets, education, and the training of experts; these policies led to tangible results. The Ministry of Education first promulgated the “Guidelines for Securing of Research Ethics” in 2007 and inaugurated the Research Ethics Advisory Committee in 2008. The Korean University Council of Research Ethics (KUCRE) was organized in 2017 to promote research ethics and sound research capabilities in Korea by facilitating the exchange of research ethics-related information and experiences among universities. The Center for Research Ethics (CRE) was established and operated with the support of the Ministry of Education to promote researchers’ awareness of research ethics and to serve as a hub for the establishment of a healthy research culture in the research community. The CRE was renamed the Research Ethics Support Center and has been operated by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) since April 2021. The most recently updated set of guidelines in this context is the “National R&D Innovation Act in Korea,” which was implemented on 1 January 2021, by the Ministry of Science and the ICT and was recently revised in June 2022 (National R&D Innovation Act 2022). Part of this act is a response to the limitations of previous regulations with regard to research ethics, such as a lack of comprehensive guidance with respect to good research practice, insufficient measures for dealing with questionable research practices (QRP), and a focus that was primarily on research misconduct and relevant follow-up measures. Therefore, the act includes a broader definition of misconduct (e.g., unethical authorship) and a wider variety of types of noncompliance (e.g., violations of R&D expense usage standards, questionable ownership of R&D results, and abuses of R&D project security).

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) issued the “Guidelines for Responding to Misconduct in Research” in 2006 and subsequently revised them in 2014, thereby requiring universities and research institutions to implement RCR education.Later, the book “For the Sound Development of Science” (2015) was published by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Editing Committee (known as “the Green Book”). This bilingual book (available in both Japanese and English) has thus become an important reference pertaining to research ethics and integrity for all Japanese researchers. (For other initiatives taken by the Japanese government agencies, see Office for Research Ethics Promotion, MEXT 2021.)

In summary, the governments and main funding agencies of these three nations have issued policies aimed at guiding research activities and promoting research integrity. The contents of these policies not only focus on research integrity to guide good research practices but also include the prevention and handling of questionable and responsible research practices.

Challenges

Concerns regarding a top-down approach to research integrity governance

In these three nations, we found that governments, including ministries related to science and technology, have played an important role in promoting research ethics and integrity. This situation is consistent with the roles played by such agencies in other regions, such as the NSF and the NIH in the US. Indeed, a top-down approach based on governmental regulations and mandates has become prominent and has seemed to function well in these three nations. However, while the experiences of European countries have indicated that “hierarchical, top-down implementation is doomed to fail” (Mejlgaard et al. 2020, 360), figures working in local academia in East Asia have also raised concerns regarding whether such a government-led approach permits excessive governmental control, thereby restricting academic freedom or causing the variety of disciplinary research to be underestimated to some degree. Concern has also arisen regarding the question of whether a high degree of involvement by governments in research integrity can weaken institutions’ own abilities with respect to self-regulation and management. Therefore, the question of how to achieve a careful balance among government mandates, institutional self-administration, research communities’ self-discipline, individual researchers’ autonomy, and the responsibility of other stakeholders has become a serious issue.

In Taiwan, the Taiwan Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (University System of Taiwan 2020) was implemented by research communities and published in mid-2020. This code serves as a reference for the enhancement of research integrity in the academic context of Taiwan. More importantly, it emphasizes the responsibilities of researchers and the duties of research institutions rather than the prevention of misconduct. In addition, the Taiwan Association for Academic Ethics Education (TAAEE) was founded in mid-2020 without any government involvement (https://www.taaee.org.tw/index.php). All these efforts emphasize the voices and efforts to promote research integrity-related self-discipline of the Taiwanese research community.

Since 2007, Korea has also made various efforts to promote research ethics, a process that has proceeded in a top-down manner. In other words, when the Ministry of Education prepared and distributed standard guidelines concerning research ethics, universities, research institutes, and academic associations established and implemented their own guidelines based on those documents. This approach served as a strong impetus for an increase in researchers’ awareness of research ethics and encouraged universities and research institutions to establish their own research ethics systems over a short period of time. Recently, the Ministry of Education amended the Academic Promotion Act in 2021 to clarify the university’s responsibilities regarding the prevention and fair handling of research misconduct and to strengthen sanctions against research misconduct. In addition, in March 2022, the Guidelines for Securing Research Ethics were revised to clarify the target and scope of application of these regulations and to increase the effectiveness of various agencies with regard to handling research misconduct.

In Japan, the Science Council of Japan (SCJ), an organization working under the Cabinet Office, represents the scholarly community working in all academic disciplines, ranging from the humanities and social sciences to medicine and engineering. The SCJ implemented the Code of Conduct for Scientists in 2006 and revised it in 2013. In 2015, in response to a request related to MEXT’s concern regarding the implementation of the revised guidelines in 2014, the SCJ issued a document entitled “Improvement of Research Integrity in Scientific Research,” which dealt with various issues, such as the basic duties of care that must be fulfilled by researchers, reference standards for research ethics education, and models for regulations focused on research misconduct at each institution.

Additionally, a Japanese NGO, the Association for the Promotion of Research Integrity (APRIN), was formed in mid-2016 by leading researchers across a variety of academic disciplines. This independent nonprofit organization aims to raise awareness of global research ethics as well as promote the development of science. APRIN also develops and distributes online educational programs known as “e-APRIN,” which focus on various issues in research ethics, including research integrity in secondary education, and the association conducts relevant studies, such as standardized case investigations.

In summary, the government-led top-down approach seems to have been dominant in this context thus far, and it is likely inevitable in these three nations. However, government policies and regulations also require individual research institutes and universities to take responsibility for the promotion of research integrity. In addition, an increasing number of community-led efforts have been made to facilitate the promotion of research integrity.

Emphasis on handling misconduct rather than positive implications

Another challenge we noted was that these three nations each developed their own government documents pertaining to the handling of misconduct cases (issued in 1999 in Taiwan, 2007 in Korea, and 2006 in Japan) prior to the comprehensive introduction of research integrity principles and RCR to their researchers. Although consensus was later reached that honesty, respect, accountability, and transparency represent important principles for ensuring a complete research record for the purposes of verification, the fact that official documents were issued prior to the identification of these principles was likely a response to the needs of these countries for reporting, investigation, and adjudication mechanisms in regard to suspected misconduct and violations of research integrity. However, the legitimacy of these documents may draw the attention of both academics and the public to misconduct per se rather than to the positive implications of research integrity. In other words, the concept of research integrity is more closely related to a narrow notion of or specific actions related to “misconduct,” and the associated “education” is related to the “prevention” of such misconduct by researchers and the public. Whether this incomplete concept of research integrity elicits passive reactions to RCR education from researchers or lowers the public’s trust in scientific research enterprises is a topic that is worthy of further investigation (see also Steneck and Bulger 2007).

Frame 2: Institutional management of research ethics and integrity

Present situation

According to the requirements of government policies, regulations, and mandates, research institutions and universities should have completed their relevant intramural governance by certain years. In Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, university- or institutional-level special units/personnel should be established, such as an office or committee for research ethics/integrity. Each research institution should require its researchers to receive RCR training and education as well as to organize various relevant activities and formulate procedures regarding the prevention of research misconduct and the handling of any such cases. The ultimate goal of these policies, as noted in the Singapore Statement (2010), is to create and sustain environments that encourage integrity by providing education, clear policies, and reasonable standards for scientific advancement while fostering work environments that support research integrity.

As mentioned previously, in Taiwan, two government agencies, MOE and NSTC, are responsible for the development of policies related to research ethics and integrity. Under the supervision of such authorities, research institutions that receive funding for research projects are obliged to oversee intramural research activities and maintain research integrity. The continual updating of Taiwanese governmental policies requires research institutions and universities to revise their regulations continually to align them with global standards. To date, approximately all 280 research institutions and universities in Taiwan have established a research integrity committee or office, have implemented policies and regulations regarding the management of research activities, and have jointly constructed a robust mechanism to ensure research integrity throughout the nation.

In Korea, universities and research institutions have developed systems to ensure research ethics based on the Guidelines for Securing Research Ethics issued by the Ministry of Education (most recently updated in 2022). According to the research ethics survey conducted by the National Research Foundation of Korea in 2021, 98% of four-year universities in Korea have established and implemented regulations related to research ethics and research integrity committees on their own initiative. In this context, such committees are mainly responsible for establishing policies regarding research ethics, enacting and revising regulations related to research ethics, providing research ethics education to prevent research misconduct, and verifying instances of research misconduct. In addition, an increasing number of universities have developed individual divisions that are responsible for research ethics, such as the Research Ethics Center, which includes the IRB and Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee (IACUC) and is responsible for ensuring research integrity. Meanwhile, the Korean University Council of Research Ethics (KUCRE) also contributes to the task of ensuring research ethics in universities. Representative projects include seminars for the chairpersons and members of the research integrity committees of universities (held twice per year), workshops that allow research ethics practitioners to improve their research misconduct handling capabilities (held twice per year), the implementation of expert recommendations concerning the verification of research misconduct in universities and the conduct of research ethics-related policy research by the Ministry of Education.

In Japan, as MEXT’s 2014 Guidelines require all research institutions, including universities, to establish the necessary organizational structure “to prevent research misconduct,” most universities (including all national and public universities) have established such a structure, including the appointment of an “RCR education officer,” who is responsible for providing RCR education to all personnel and students who are involved in research activities, as well as the implementation of policies and rules for handling related allegations. A number of universities have established a permanent office and/or committee to promote research integrity.

In summary, nearly all research institutes and universities in these three nations have been mandated by governments to implement their policies and regulations, establish education mechanisms for researchers, and employ specific personnel responsible for the promotion of research integrity and case handling. Therefore, it seems that research integrity has been incorporated into the organizational structure both formally and normatively, as suggested by the SOPs4RI project, to support a sound research environment and ensure that researchers adhere to the requirements related to research integrity. However, these countries continue to face institutional challenges with regard to sustaining research management.

Challenges

Decreased willingness to play an active role in research integrity governance

It has been recommended that universities should play a leading role and become more involved in the task of ensuring research integrity to produce high-quality research outcomes (Mayer, Bouter, and Steneck 2017; Schrag and Purdy 2017). However, compared to the initiatives, policies, and regulations implemented by governments, we found that institutions or universities in the three nations in question seem to be less willing to play such active roles or to take more innovative actions to promote research ethics and integrity. Lee (2021b) provided an ideal model for research ethics governance; according to this model, guidelines related to research ethics and compliance with research ethics should be institutionalized. He further suggested the creation of a restructured integrated control tower for university research ethics by establishing, for example, a Research Ethics Center and allocating additional human resources to the task of ensuring research ethics and professionalism. However, more effort must be expended on the task of implementing this proposed model in these three East Asian nations.

Taking Taiwan as an example, all universities and institutions applying for NSTC research funding and fulfilling the mandate must establish a committee or office and designate personnel to remain in contact with NSTC regarding research integrity governance. However, the professionalism of such a Research Integrity Officer (RIO, see Bonito, Titus, and Wright 2012; Wright and Schneider 2010) has not yet become an object of focus or value. One reason for this lack is that higher-level administrators in some universities tend to prioritize the goal of “no more cases,” which leads to passive, defensive, “have-to” attitudes regarding the appropriate management style for research integrity. For example, some research ethics committees in Taiwanese universities conduct meetings only when it becomes necessary to amend regulations or handle an incoming allegation of misconduct.

A similar situation can be observed in Korea. As mentioned previously, although the establishment of research ethics governance at universities with the aim of promoting research ethics in Korea has produced positive and tangible results in terms of securing the system and issuing related regulations, many challenges remain. The level of interest in research ethics exhibited by university stakeholders is not high, and the actions of the research integrity committee of the university have focused mainly on the verification of research misconduct. In other words, the committees that bear responsibility for the promotion of research ethics on the university campus have not yet achieved an ideal status or maximized their functions.

Japan also faces a similar challenge. Institutions, including universities, have previously tended to take responsibility for issues related to research integrity, including misconduct by their researchers, in a less active manner (Wada 2014). MEXT has continued to encourage more autonomy in the higher education sector (Macfarlane and Saitoh 2008) and issued new guidelines (MEXT 2014) concerning research integrity in hopes of strengthening institutions’ ability to fulfill their duty to curb research misconduct. In other words, in the past, the conventional approach was to assign the responsibility for avoiding misconduct to the moral compasses of individual researchers; in the future, the relevant measures will be strengthened by ensuring that institutions/universities assume this responsibility (Fudano 2020).

Lack of sufficient resources and qualified research integrity officers

Since the notion of research integrity in general and that of research integrity officers (RIOs) in particular have, to some degree, been imported from Western research cultures, the professionalism of RIOs (see Bonito, Titus, and Wright 2012; Wright and Schneider 2010) does not yet seem to have become the object of focus or value in these three nations. One reason for this lack is that some higher-level university administrators who exhibit passive attitudes are less willing to allocate additional resources to the task of promoting awareness of and operations regarding research integrity. Another such reason is that few faculty members are able to work as full-time RIOs, whereas low- or middle-level staff, whether or not they have real research experience, typically have duties other than an assignment to such a committee, center, or office. In some Taiwanese universities, administrative staff who are appointed as RIOs may consider these duties to be most unwelcome, and the task of handling cases in particular may be viewed as a perilous enterprise or a “hot potato.” In Korea, likewise, there is usually a lack of manpower with the relevant expertise and experience to actively plan for and promote important research ethics-related work at the university level.

In Japan, in many cases, one person who is responsible for “compliance” is also assigned to be an RCR education officer, and in other cases, he or she may need to oversee the ethics reviews of research proposals and IRB-related training simultaneously. Therefore, a serious lack of qualified personnel for the promotion of research integrity has been highlighted by the 2020 survey conducted by the Institute for Future Engineering under contract with MEXT (Institute for Future Engineering 2021).

Therefore, the institutionalization of research integrity, including the establishment of centralized governance, the promotion of more active leadership, the presence of professional RIOs to allow relevant experience to be accumulated, and the acquisition of sufficient resources to facilitate action are among the challenges related to institutional management regarding the task of promoting research integrity. Accordingly, careful evaluation of the ideal governance framework, the amount of manpower that should reasonably be allocated to this task, and ways of increasing the professionalism of RIOs (such as the development of an RIO network) to allow them to play multiple roles are also necessary.

Frame 3: Researchers’ education and training

Present situation

Compared to the US, which has implemented programs for education in responsible research conduct for more than 30 years (Kalichman 2013), East Asian nations have a much shorter history with respect to this form of education. In Taiwan, the Center for Taiwan Academic Research Ethics Education (AREE, https://ethics.moe.edu.tw/) was established in 2014 with support from governmental agencies and has become a major platform that provides various resources (guidelines, links, glossaries, etc.) and services, including an online RCR education program. This systematic, comprehensive and free program includes more than 100 learning units in traditional Chinese and 35 units in English for use by Taiwanese researchers (ranging from undergraduates to senior researchers). As of mid-2022, this platform has more than one million unique users, and 100 thousand new users are acquired every year. Over 95% of Taiwanese graduate students are required to take this online course via AREE to graduate, and more than 85% of universities and research institutions require all faculty researchers to complete RCR training, in which context AREE is one channel for providing online RCR education. In addition, the Taiwan Association of Academic Ethics Education (TAAEE), as mentioned above, collaborated with the EU’s Path2Integrity (https://www.path2integrity.eu/) to train local instructors in innovative teaching methods and to develop RCR learning materials for use by local high school students.

The Korea Institute of Human Resources Development in Science and Technology (KIRD) has provided online research ethics education to university undergraduate and graduate students, principal investigators and participant researchers. More than 77,000 researchers completed their education in 2021. In addition, the Research Ethics Support Center (renamed from the Center for Research Ethics Information, which was established in 2009) has collected various kinds of materials (glossaries, articles, reports, books, guidelines, training, etc.) and provided counseling services (including more than 6,000 cases in 2020). According to the annual survey concerning research ethics in universities conducted by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF 2020), 180 university respondents (out of a total of 224 four-year universities) indicated a steady increase in their implementation of intramural research ethics education programs from 67.5% in 2015 to 81.0% in 2019. The most commonly implemented types of such programs included expert lectures (122, 67.8%), online courses (121, 67.2%), and workshops and forums (88, 48.9%). In addition, the survey indicated that these 180 universities hosted 1,067 events (lectures, workshops, online/offline courses, etc.) for graduate students, compared with 638 events for faculty and researchers.

As mentioned previously, in Japan, the Association for the Promotion of Research Integrity (APRIN) was founded in 2016 with the aim of promoting and cultivating awareness of research ethics across the nation. APRIN provides online learning materials (as of April 2022, more than 130 modules across 22 categories) in various disciplines for students and researchers in the context of higher education as well as for individuals who are involved in clinical research, research institutions, and hospitals. Recently, APRIN has expanded its target audience to include individuals studying in secondary education. Two online lessons concerning research ethics were developed specifically for high school students and teachers. As of March 2021, approximately 350 organizations in Japan used the APRIN e-learning programs, and the number of registered accounts reached 700,000 (APRIN 2021). APRIN also hosts annual meetings for individuals working to promote research integrity.

In addition, JSPS created the e-Learning Course on Research Ethics based on its textbook “For the Sound Development of Science” and offers free online instruction to researchers and students, including issuing certificates of completion to individuals who successfully complete the course (JSPS, https://elcore.jsps.go.jp/top.aspx). The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) produced educational materials, including the Japanese version of ORI’s “the Lab” and two original video materials (https://www.jst.go.jp/kousei_p/en/), and hosted workshops for individuals involved in RCR education. AMED created a number of textbooks and case books and continues to support the development of educational systems and materials for the advancement of research integrity (AMED 2021).

In summary, all three of these nations have made various RCR learning materials available to their respective researchers. The major instruction format is online learning, and the main learners targeted by these materials are college students and senior researchers; however, the scope of this process has expanded to include high school students. Regarding international cooperation, Taiwan and South Korea signed an agreement to exchange some teaching materials; Taiwan’s TAAEE and Japan’s APRIN have exchanged views and engaged in discussion on the topic of research integrity education for high school students.

Challenges

Lack of qualified instructors in RCR education

Previous research conducted in the American context (e.g., Kalichman 2013, 2014; Steneck 2006) has highlighted the importance of education for fostering research ethics and integrity, and RCR education has become a pivotal issue throughout higher education in recent years. European OPs4RI also recommended that adequate training should be provided to researchers at all career stages by qualified trainers. East Asian nations are no exception to these trends; however, they continue to face certain challenges. For example, Fudano (2021) noted that although universities/institutions are aware of the importance of research ethics and integrity, universities usually have an insufficient number of qualified teachers to offer instruction in those topics, which may be the first challenge associated with such a task. Fudano further suggested that anyone, including professors, researchers, and even students, can become qualified communicators with respect to sharing the importance of and recounting their experiences with research integrity practices. In other words, despite the fact that online RCR education and training are available in these three nations, the recruitment of more qualified human teachers to provide in-classroom learning experiences remains necessary.

Low willingness to participate in RCR training on the part of researchers and students

The second challenge we observed is that some (if not all) researchers/professors as well as students in general in these three nations seem to be less active with respect to participating in any education program, as noted by Lee (2021b). Part of the reason for this situation, as mentioned previously, is that researchers’ expectations regarding RCR education do not pertain to “doing good science” but are rather focused more narrowly on “avoiding misconduct.” For example, as some Taiwanese graduate students asked, “why punish us by making us take RCR instruction while those senior researchers are engaging in misconduct?” (Feng 2017). Therefore, possible solutions to this challenge include changing this stigmatized conception of research integrity, integrating research ethics and integrity into regular curricula, including a wider coverage of topics beyond case prevention, introducing students and researchers to QRP, providing supervision and mentoring, improving data practices and management, facilitating (international) research collaboration, and inviting senior professors to share their experiences in conducting good science.

In this respect, in Japan, some funding agencies (JST and AMED) and RCR educators, such as Fudano, have begun to emphasize the importance of so-called “aspirational ethics” in addition to the traditional “preventive ethics”; the former focuses more closely on morality and integrity instead of on immorality and dishonesty, and its anticipated effects are related to inspiration and motivation instead of relating to reluctance and hesitation (Fudano 2015). More innovative solutions, such as university-wide mentoring programs and student ambassador programs related to research integrity, as suggested by Kalichman (2014), can be established to help enhance researchers’ levels of interest and participation in the promotion of research integrity.

The lack of a solid evaluation of the effectiveness of RCR education

The third challenge we face is the task of assessing and evaluating the effectiveness of RCR education. It is particularly important for policy-makers in these three nations to justify the high cost of investment in RCR education. Previous research has produced knowledge concerning the effectiveness of RCR education in terms of content, type, delivery format, level of instructor experience, and so on (e.g., Antes 2014; Antes et al. 2009; Todd et al. 2017; Watts et al. 2017). A general conclusion of such research has been that RCR education is effective to some degree in the US (Steele et al. 2016). Compared to the literature focused mainly on programs in the US, however, we found few solid studies concerning the effectiveness of local RCR programs beyond the level of basic surveys concerning who did what and when. Moreover, since an insufficient number of educational practices have been documented empirically, there is a lack of systematic reviews or meta-analyses of program evaluations in the languages used in these three countries. As suggested by Bouter (2020), research integrity policies, including policies regarding related forms of education, should be implemented in as evidence-based a manner as possible by any institute. Therefore, evidence-based educational policies and related measures are precisely what Taiwan, Korea, and Japan strive to implement.

In summary, these three nations, both alone and together, face the challenges posed by the lack of qualified instructors in RCR education, the lack of solid proof of its educational effectiveness, and the need for researchers’ willingness to participate in RCR training to be improved. We look forward to finding local solutions quickly and effectively and learning about relevant experiences from the world academic community.

Frame 4: Misconduct case handling

Present situation

As discussed above, the principal objective of research integrity-related policies, regulations, management, and education is to promote self-discipline and establish a self-enforced value system that guide researchers to behave in an appropriate manner. However, related experiences in developed countries have indicated that any such approach, whether implemented individually or jointly, is incapable of preventing research misconduct entirely (see also Davis 2003; DuBois et al. 2016; Kalichman 2016). This experience has been observed in research institutions worldwide, including those in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Therefore, an appropriate coping mechanism is required to address cases of misconduct to ensure legal compatibility via cautious review and procedural fairness. For example, in Taiwan, the NSTC established guidelines for the handling of such cases in 1999 in response to its first plagiarism case. As recently as the end of 2020, revisions to these guidelines have been made (NSTC 2020) and applied to approximately 200 confirmed cases of misconduct. Among cases featuring some administrative measures or sanctions, more than half (55.60%) involved plagiarism, and 18.41% included data fabrication/falsification. It has been noted that 14.08% of such cases involved self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, or duplicate submission of research proposals or articles.

In Korea, the NRF issued clear guidelines for case handling (NRF 2015, 2020, 2021) and the collection of annual statistics concerning allegedly illegitimate/unethical cases and dispositions. An ongoing increase in the number of cases of alleged research misconduct in universities has been observed (NRF 2020), that is, an increase from 41 cases in 2015 to 243 in 2019; the total number of cases between 2015 and 2019 was 544. It is worth noting that 210 cases (38.60%) involved invalid authorship, which was the most prevalent issue among all allegations, followed by plagiarism (174, 31.99%) and redundant publication (71, 13.05%).

In Japan, as mentioned previously, MEXT (2006, 2014) has issued and amended guidelines for responding to cases of research misconduct. MEXT (2021) also disclosed 76 cases of misconduct in 2015–2021 on its official website. It was determined that 47 cases (61.84%) involved plagiarism, 25 cases (32.89%) involved falsification, 19 cases (25%) involved fabrication, 4 cases (5.26%) involved self-plagiarism, and 12 cases (15.79%) involved inappropriate authorship. Approximately forty percent of all disclosed cases (33, 43.42%) were identified to involve more than one type of research fraud.

In summary, these three nations have paid a great deal of attention to cases of misconduct and have issued corresponding guidelines for handling such cases. It is interesting to note that the main forms of misconduct in each nation are quite different. Whether these differences are due to their different definitions of misconduct or to academic and cultural factors is a topic that is worthy of further comparison and investigation.

Challenges

Research is costly, and a large portion of research resources are provided with the support of tax money via related ministries and funding agencies. Therefore, it is legitimate for the general public to request the government to implement mechanisms to monitor research that is funded in this manner. Simultaneously, researchers require ministries or funding agencies to implement clear guidelines for research activities in general and for research misconduct in particular (Roe 2021). The brief introduction to this situation discussed above highlights the fact that the governments of these nations have implemented guidelines for case handling and developed some basic statistics regarding the number and types of misconduct. However, several challenges remain to be overcome in this context.

Difficulty in investigating allegations

Unlike in the US, which offers a clear definition of research misconduct in its federal laws, in Taiwan, violations of research ethics and guidelines for case handling are mainly included in the executive orders issued by government agencies. This situation occasionally causes such investigations to become ineffective and difficult. For example, the RIO system has not yet been established in Taiwan, as mentioned previously. Moreover, the investigation/review boards that handle misconduct cases at the university or governmental levels are usually composed of senior researchers in the respondents’ fields as well as several legal experts. No professional investigators, such as those associated with the Office of Inspection General (OIG) of the NSF, are included on such boards. Moreover, the criteria for judging misconduct or behaviors involving minor breaches of ethics seem to be inconsistent among these experts, and final decisions are usually made based on a weak consensus resulting from insufficient experience. In other words, the quality of these judgments is occasionally inconsistent across institutes/funding agencies. As Nouchi et al. (2020) noted, the investigation criteria and process, regardless of the results of the investigation, may lead to dissatisfaction on the part of respondents, investigators, institutions, and research communities. In Taiwan, such dissatisfaction may even lead to situations in which complainants/respondents appeal to the courts or mass media.

Investigations of research misconduct allegations in Korea have been conducted by the institutions to which the persons who is alleged to have engaged in research misconduct belonged at the time of the alleged misconduct in accordance with the regulations concerning the procedure for verifying research misconduct. To ensure an objective and fair verification of research misconduct, the Ministry of Education, NRF, KIRD, KUCRE, and other agencies have provided manuals and materials concerning research misconduct verification as well as offered customized education to members of the Research Integrity Committee and practitioners of research ethics. As a result, committee members’ ability to understand and apply the principles and procedures associated with research misconduct verification have been viewed as increasing. Nevertheless, the most negative aspect of research misconduct verification in Korea is that allegations of misconduct can be abused as a means of attacking competitors or expressing a political stance rather than as a way of ensuring research integrity in relation to pure research. Accordingly, it is very likely for researchers and the general public to develop the false perception that research ethics per se not only hinders research progress but is also detrimental to public trust in and the reputations of both research communities and individual scholars. Therefore, to prevent repeated malicious allegations, the strictness of the conditions and requirements for alleging research misconduct has been increased. In addition, it is necessary to develop a set of standardized criteria to minimize the discrepancy and to regulate the types of misconduct involved in case verifications. For this purpose, in March 2022, the NRF analyzed the research misconduct verification cases associated with each university and provided the results to each university for use as a reference.

In Japan, the situation of misconduct case handling and allegation investigation is very similar to the situation in Taiwan. Although the 2014 MEXT Guidelines require research institutions to develop stricter and clearer processes and regulations (such as the requirement that more than half the investigation committee should consist of external members) to investigate allegations of research misconduct, most institutions do not have clear proficiency and expertise regarding such investigations or with regard to the task of making judgments without the authority to preserve evidence that is afforded to some RIOs in the US. Thus, as Nouchi et al. noted, “although the core policy or guidelines of each institution provides a general framework for investigating allegations of research misconduct, neither the procedures for investigations nor the criteria for identifying research misconduct are standardized globally,” as in the case of Japan (Nouchi et al. 2020).

The need to standardize and synchronize the investigation process

Since each nation has its own cultural and legal framework, ways of conducting fair investigations of allegations of research misconduct vary across nations. Taiwan and Korea have referred to relevant policies issued by other nations worldwide to establish case-handling guidelines and to make several major adjustments. Japan, in particular, has made special efforts to ensure the global standardization of the investigation process (Nouchi et al. 2020). A paper by Nouchi et al. discussed the responsibilities of institutions with regard to conducting investigations, the roles and duties of investigation committees, policies for the retention of raw data, the scope of such investigations, review criteria, types of allegations (such as plagiarism and inappropriate research practices), standards for reporting the results of investigations and so on. Therefore, the questions of how to standardize the investigation process across domestic agencies, universities, and institutions within the legal and cultural framework of each nation and how to maintain close synchronization among research communities worldwide indeed represent major challenges for East Asian counties. Detailed issues relevant to these questions include ways of establishing whistleblowing systems, dealing with increasing numbers of malicious allegations, and publicizing misconduct cases. It is worth noting that cultural differences may play a role in shaping countries’ pursuit of global standardization. In other words, the East Asian tradition of thinking collectively, interdependently, and comprehensively (Nho 2016, 2021) may need to be taken into consideration when promoting appropriate research practices and addressing breaching behaviors or misconduct.

Requirements for distributing resources in the broader context of misconduct and noncompliance

It is interesting to observe the inconsistent scope and definition of misconduct and other types of noncompliance in these three nations. Unlike the US federal government, which adopted a uniform definition of research misconduct in the context of FFP in 2000, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan have not codified research misconduct legally. Consistent with the results of the survey conducted by Resnik et al. (2015) regarding US research institutions, institutes/universities and government agencies in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan have greater responsibility for and face greater pressure resulting from this broader scope of misconduct and noncompliance cases than that associated with FFP. While an increase in (mal)allegations requires more administrative resources to address, it can be observed that plagiarism is the most frequent type of misconduct committed in these three nations. The reason for this fact is probably related to the three nations’ similar research performance indicators. For example, the quantity-focused and speed-centric evaluation system used in these countries requires researchers to produce a high paper count over a brief period of time (Nho 2016). Moreover, top universities/institutions may require researchers to produce journal articles in English to ensure higher visibility and to improve competition in the global research arena. This requirement or encouragement can partially explain why Korea has many cases of illegitimate authorship and why Taiwan has witnessed an increase in cases of self-plagiarism. Therefore, the needs to construct a friendly and inclusive research environment and establish a fair mechanism for evaluating research performance represent major tasks for Taiwan, Korea, and Japan.

Conclusion, limitations, and directions for future research

This article has highlighted the current situation of and experiences with research integrity campaigns in Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. Although the challenges that continue to lie ahead are significant, the accomplishments that these three nations have made with limited resources and in limited timeframes are reassuring. In particular, research integrity campaigns have made progress in these nations by using a closely linked 4-pillar promotion framework (policies and regulations, institutional management, researchers’ education and training, and misconduct case handling). This progress could not have been made without the combined efforts of policy-makers, research institutes, research communities, individual researchers, the public, academic publishers, and media observers. Admittedly, given that these three nations are relatively new entrants into the global research arena, they did not have to develop their research integrity promotion strategies from nothing; rather, these countries had the luxury of using the policies, regulations, and approaches to management, education, and even cases of misconduct developed by well-developed, research-intensive countries as references. With the intention of fostering better research, in accordance with the conclusions of the SOPs4RI project, all three nations as well as academics worldwide will continue to emphasize the needs to provide stronger support by prioritizing people and enhancing their capabilities, to promote solid organizations by incorporating research integrity into institutional structures, and to facilitate better communication by ensuring research clarity and transparency. As a result of these research integrity promotion measures, the goals of increasing the research capacity and quality of these countries, allowing them to become trustworthy research partners, and contributing to the production of human knowledge continue to lie a long way ahead but can nevertheless be achieved in the foreseeable future.

This study has at least three limitations that represent worthwhile directions for further research efforts. First, this study aims to provide an overview of the current situations of research integrity promotion in these three nations; however, the literature on this subject is rather limited, and we focused mostly on government documents that are available online. Since some government documents are published in the languages of these countries (i.e., Chinese, Korean, Japanese) rather than in English, we maintain that this paper can function as a window to systematically introduce these documents to researchers worldwide who care about research integrity.

Second, in the article, we mention the current situations of these three nations; however, we do not make any cross-national policy comparisons or assess the impact of these policy implementations. Furthermore, while this article addresses the challenges faced by these countries, it does not propose strategies or solutions to these challenges at a more comprehensive level. Therefore, future research can conduct more rigorous comparative studies of governmental or organizational policies, and it can perhaps identify model policies or practices for reference by other countries and institutions or explore the key factors and cultural differences that underlie the success of different policies and practices.

Third, this article uses a 4-pillar framework to organize its discussion, which inevitably omits other possible aspects of the promotion of RI and limits the discussion of other roles played by various stakeholders in research integrity promotion. Other frameworks, such as the important areas, topics, and actions identified by the SOPs4RI project, are not covered in the discussion contained in this article. Therefore, future research can adopt a different framework and include more “pillars” to explore more diverse topics and feasible solutions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science and Technology Council, Taiwan [NSTC109-2745-V-009-001-MY2, NSTC110-2511-H-A49-008-MY4].