Ensuring the rigor of research
Research integrity requires more than just avoiding research misconduct or the mistreatment of research subjects. It requires us to pay attention to everything about research quality. We cannot have high-quality research without research integrity. Since 2001, our research integrity program has developed an international reputation for promoting the integrity of academic research.
The settings in which researchers conduct research can strongly influence their behavior. We are studying whether these factors promote or discourage research integrity:
- Organizational characteristics: The perceptions and influence of work demands, rewards and social support
- Career incentive systems: The effects of “publish and procure funding or perish” reward systems; conflicts of interest resulting from soft-money salary support models
- Structural arrangements of science: Dual roles of graduate students and postdoctoral fellow positions as trainees and students, but also as inexpensive, highly trained labor supply
Investigator
Key projects
Harmful research practices
The projects “Work-Strain, Career Course and Research Integrity,” and “Procedural Justice, Identity, and Research Integrity” found many instances of harmful research practices among academic researchers. We pointed out connections between these behaviors and certain characteristics of organizational research settings.