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Proposals for a national panel to monitor and investigate research misconduct in the United Kingdom were criticised at a recent meeting of journal editors and ethicists as lacking the authority to deal adequately with the problem.
The proposals were presented at a meeting of the Committee on Publication
Ethics (COPE)
an
organisation designed to offer a forum for editors to manage cases of
possible research and publication misconductby
Professor Peter Lachmann, president of the Academy of Medical
Sciences.
The academy had been asked to take a lead in developing a framework for a national panel to coordinate a national effort to document cases of research misconduct, to advise on the investigation of alleged cases, and to develop preventive strategies.
Professor Lachmann proposed that the academy would maintain a database of allegations and their outcomes and collect experiences with procedures, to provide robust guidelines for dealing with fraud and misconduct. Information would be collected from employers, organisations associated with research (such as the royal colleges), and journal editors.
He argued that developing guidelines based on expert opinion on how to prevent and deal with research fraud would not help: "This problem will be solved not by more experienced people devising even more guidelines, but by sharing experiences and explaining what did and didn't work."
The academy would also provide employers with independent expert help in the early phase of an investigation, offering an impartial view from outside the institution concerned.
Professor Lachmann acknowledged the serious impact of research fraud, which undermines trust among scientists and between scientists and the public. "That is enormously important because science relies on credibility."
However, he continued: "It is quite unrealistic to believe that this trust culture can be replaced in any way at all by an accountability or audit culture. The scientific enterprise simply wouldn't work if people felt the need to check up on everything, and it would simply become corroded by suspicion and mistrust."
In contrast, the committee's chairman, and editor of Gut, Professor Michael Farthing, considered that some form of auditing would be helpful: "The problem with research is that we have no audit process. Shouldn't we be aspiring towards much better record keeping and some sort of internal and external audit? Why is scientific research any different from financial probity?"
Professor Ian Kennedy, chairman designate of the proposed Commission for Healthcare Audit and Inspection, noted that the case of Enron demonstrated that if you had a system, there would always be criminals. That's the reason to have criminal law rather than to abandon the idea, he said.
Professor Lachmann argued that this went back to the difference between a
trust and an audit culture. He considered that substituting excessive
accountability and audit for the trust culture would be a very high
price to pay. However, Professor Farthing countered that doctors used
to be trusted, but their practice was now audited.
Footnotes
The COPE Report 2002 can be found at www.publicationethics.org.uk
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