David M. Shaw; Thomas C. Erren

“ However, many people will always do the minimum required in terms of integrity. Therefore, the minimum must be set very high in order to protect research integrity. Some will also argue that it is impractical to set the bar so high for such “small” breaches. But if integrity is truly important, researchers must be vigilant for any and all cases of misconduct, not just the really obvious, really bad cases. The various national and international guidelines [ [34] ] must be more specific and better enforced in order to prevent them from being used as a camouflage for misconduct. ”

“ For example, putting pressure on junior researchers to allow guest authors on papers is not only unethical but also makes it more likely that they will see such behaviour as acceptable. Here, we suggest ten simple rules that should be put into action by all research institutions and to which all researchers should adhere in order to ensure ethical behaviour in science and medicine. ”

“ Students and staff must be made aware of the standards they are expected to meet; there is no point in having a zero-tolerance approach to scientific misconduct if no one knows that the standard of research integrity has been set so high. As well as making their own integrity guidelines highly visible, institutions should make integrity education a key part of undergraduate and postgraduate courses across all disciplines. ”

“ Raising Concerns about Suspected Misconduct Must Be Mandatory All integrity policies should mandate whistleblowing on integrity issues. To facilitate this, all institutions should provide career protection for those who raise concerns about their superiors. Only if whistleblowers are truly protected will research integrity be fostered.
Rule 9: RIOs Must Have the Power to Enforce Integrity Policies Even if integrity guidelines are strengthened in line with these suggestions, strong rules are meaningless without the means to enforce them. ”

“ All Institutions Must Have Clear Procedures for Raising Concerns and Protections for Those Who Do So A lack of rigor is evident throughout current integrity systems. Assuming that they are aware of the principles of research integrity (see Rule 10) , junior researchers, in particular, often have no clear path by which to raise concerns. If such a pathway exists, they often risk losing their jobs or their careers because no protections exist for whistleblowers ”

“ Authors who feel tempted not to disclose competing interests should be clear about the fact that readers continue to act as “peer reviewers” after publication, increasing peer review by orders of magnitude [ [22] ] . ”

“ Trials Must Be Reported Accurately, As Well As Registered Another important issue concerns clinical trials. While some countries now mandate registration of clinical trials on public registries like clinicaltrials.gov, there are still many that do not, and even those that do still allow exceptions for certain circumstances and first-in-human (FIH) trials. ”