Symposia
Symposium 1: Leadership in Promoting a Research Culture with Integrity in Institutions
There is minimal research evidence on successful leadership styles and practices to promote a positive research culture with integrity in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and Research Performing Organisations (RPOs). However, leadership is considered a key component to embedding good research practices in the research culture of a HEI/RPO system. Successful leadership styles and practices not only depend on the journey the system is on, but also on the infrastructure and resources available to the leader.
The symposium will share the diversity in international leadership experiences with Dr Seán Lacey (Research Integrity & Compliance Officer) bringing in leadership challenges and opportunities from the perspective of a leader in a new Technological University in Ireland. Dr Dena Plemmons (Director of the Research Ethics Education Program, University of California) will present on her experiences in curriculum development and training for leadership in research integrity, while Dr Bob Siegerink (Leiden University Medical Center) will provide insight into the modernisation of the system of recognition and rewards to improve the quality of research and leadership.
Participants’ voices will be actively solicited during the session through interactive polling, with a panel discussion closing out the symposium and responding to the polling results and participants’ questions.
Relevance to the conference theme
There are numerous examples of good research practice, along with guidance as to what is expected of leaders to promote these practices. However, in order to catalyse aligning with policies and procedures in relation to good research practice there is often a culture change and training required, where the incentives and rewards for investing in such a culture change are not always recognised. For a change in research culture to be achieved, strong leadership is required.
Proposed moderators and contributors
Moderator: Dr Tamarinde L. Haven.
Affiliation: Department of Methodology and Statistics, Tilburg University, Netherlands
Link: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4702-2472.
Contributor 1: Dr Seán Lacey.
Affiliation: Research Integrity & Compliance Officer, Munster Technological University, Ireland.
Topic: Leadership in Research Integrity from a new Technological University perspective.
Link: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3005-6294.
Contributor 2: Dr Dena Plemmons.
Affiliation: Director of the Research Ethics Education Program at the University of California, Riverside.
Topic: Training for leadership in research integrity.
Link: https://ncpre.csl.illinois.edu/about/people/dena-plemmons.
Contributor 3: Dr Bob Siegerink.
Affiliation: Leiden University Medical Center.
Topic: Recognising and rewarding leadership, lessons from a Dutch reform movement, leadership in academic promotion.
Link: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8454-9142.
Symposium 2: The impact of generative AI on integrity in education, research, and the translation of research into policy
The symposium explores the intersection of academic integrity, research integrity, and artificial intelligence (AI), examining the implications of the increased role of AI in education, research, and the translation of research into policy. The use of generative AI inclusive Large Language Models (LLMs) in scientific communication has enormous implications for trust in science and the integrity of education and research as it can potentially introduce bias, errors, and misunderstandings. However, besides these threats, generative AI, pose also opportunities to the sectors of education, research, and policy.
Our symposium will consist of leading experts who are at the forefront of exploring the intersection of AI with academic and research integrity. We aim to involve speakers who haven’t previously participated in WCRI, ensuring fresh perspectives for the audience. The symposium will also build stronger links between academic and research integrity and policy development, fostering an environment for groundbreaking interdisciplinary discussions.
The proposed moderator for this symposium will be Sonja Bjelobaba, vice-president of the European Network for Academic Integrity (ENAI). They will be joined by a diverse group of panellists representing various disciplinary fields, continents, genders, and ethnic backgrounds and including but not limited to Sarah Elaine Eaton (COPE, University of Calgary), Tomáš Foltýnek (ENAI, Masaryk University), Duncan J. Anning (Elsevier), . The target audience includes researchers, educators, policymakers, students, and stakeholders from various countries, disciplinary fields, and career stages.
Duration of session
90 minutes
Proposed structure
Introduction (5 minutes): Brief overview of the symposium’s objectives and setting the scene. Sonja Bjelobaba
Presentation on recent developments and areas of tension in AI (10 minutes): This includes developments over the last 12 months and the impact of AI on education, research, policy, and innovation. Sarah Eaton
Review of current policies in publishing + policy – areas of best practice (10 minutes) Duncan J. Anning
Deep dive into generative AI and large language models (10 minutes): Rapid developments in generative AI and the identification of potentially useful applications using generative AI in the research context. Tomáš Foltýnek
Panel Discussion (45 minutes): Speakers representing diverse perspectives exploring from different angles the impact of AI in education, research, policy, and innovation.
Audience Q&A (10 minutes): An interactive session where the audience gets an opportunity to ask questions and engage with the panellists. The participants will be given the opportunity to ask questions via Padlet already during the Panel Discussion. Padlet allows for voting on the best question which helps the moderator in selecting the most relevant questions
This symposium promises to forge stronger connections between academic and research integrity, and policy development, paving the way for novel transdisciplinary research on the effects of AI in higher education.
Symposium 3: Implications of research integrity for public trust in academic research
In a context where public trust in institutions, including academic ones, and expertise is supposedly eroding, academics have repeatedly referred to the need for strict alignment with principles of research integrity (RI). However, while it is intuitively appealing that research misconduct would harm public trust and RI principles might foster trust, evidence for this claim is thin. Initial studies seem to point to public agnosticism. Moreover, general statements about demanding RI to gain public trust obfuscate the potentially legitimate reasons for science skepticism, nor do they provide clarity on diverse stakeholders’ roles, including science communicators’, policymakers’, research funders’ and researchers’.
To address these questions, three Horizon-Europe-funded projects are currently studying public trust in research and the relation to themes like RI, open science, and science communication. In this symposium, the projects IANUS, POIESIS and VERITY will share their preliminary findings (3×20 min), focusing on different aspects of trust in science investigated in our projects, challenges and actions for different stakeholders. Subsequently, we will open up for an interactive audience discussion (30 min) to widen perspectives and explore our findings’ implications for non-European and policy contexts. The discussion will be structured around poll-questions based on project findings or open questions.
Chair:
Serge Horbach, Danish Center For Studies In Research And Research Policy – Aarhus University, Denmark.
Moderators and contributors:
Moderator: Jennifer Byrne, University of Sydney
Presenters:
Why warranted trust in science is never a given, while scepticism is an intrinsic component of trustworthiness – findings from the IANUS project
– Hub Zwart, Erasmus University Rotterdam
On the role of mediating actors in building trust through research integrity and societal integration – findings from the POIESIS project
– Serge P.J.M. Horbach, Aarhus University
Re-defining the ecosystem of trust in science: the role of stewards of trust in changing research environments – findings from the VERITY project
– Agata Gurzawska, Trilateral Research Ireland
Symposium 4: A snapshot of knowledge on research integrity from research presented in the doctoral forum of the world conferences: a bird’s eye view on the findings
In this symposium, we will hear from early-career researchers who conducted research on research integrity in their doctoral projects presented at the Doctoral Forum of previous World Conferences on Research Integrity (WCRI). The focus will be on the awardees, exploring the challenges they faced in conducting their studies, the input from the WCRI, and how their studies and careers have evolved up to 2024. After a brief introduction on the origins of the Doctoral Forum, the awardees will share their post-award progress and the conclusions of their studies. Following their presentations, there will be an overview of the evolution of the Doctoral Forum during the recent WCRIs. A 20-minute slot will be allocated for questions and discussion, and the awardees will be invited to an informal follow-up session with conference participants interested in further details from their completed projects.
Chair:
Carmen Penido, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Brazil).
Moderator:
Elizabeth Heitman, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (USA).
Contributors:
Sonia Vasconcelos, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
Francis Kombe, EthiXPERT (South Africa).
Rita Faria, University of Porto (Portugal).
Tamarinde Haven, Tilburg University (The Netherlands).
Symposium 5: Leveraging policies to influence and enhance responsible conduct of research (RCR)
The session takes stock of the influence of national and institutional policies in enhancing RCR in Lower- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). In Europe and North America, we see well-regulated policy-driven environments which have intentional (and unintentional) trickle-down effects on the institutional policies of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and research institutions. In the case of LMICs, such national policies may be non-existent or lack any authoritative implementation because governments must prioritise resources and strategic policymaking towards health care, education, infrastructure development over the perceived nice-to-haves, like research integrity (RI) policies. HEIs are left to develop their own policies and standards of behaviour to regulate their research environments. This translates into a patchwork of incongruent policies, creating challenging institutional environments and potentially limiting collaborations. Conversely, institutions in High-Income Countries (HICs), through collaborations, regularly have an opportunity to exert soft influence in building capacity, enabling policy development in LMICs and modelling responsible practices. In this session we will reflect on and discuss the RCR policy landscape in LMICs in order to constructively and critically engage on the purpose and intention of national policies and their influence on institutional practice of RCR and innovation.
Chair:
Paula Saner, Research Integrity Manager, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Proposed moderators and contributors
Chair/moderator: Paula Saner, Research Integrity Manager, University of Cape Town.
Speaker 1:
Clarissa Robertson, Coordinator for the Social, Behavioural and Education Research Ethics Committee (REC: SBE), Stellenbosch University
Topic: How do national Ethics reglations impact RI/RCR practices and policies
Speaker 2:
David Blades, Senior Coordinator Research Integrity and Governance, RMIT
Topic: Management, development and implementation of institutional research policies, examples from an HIC context
Speaker 3
Dorian Karatzas, European Commission, Head of Ethics and Integrity
Topic: What role do HICs play in capacity and policy development in LMICs?
Speaker 4
Roxana Lescano, WCRI GB, Peru
Topic: International collaboration as a tool to elevate and enact development of local policies and practice
Symposium 6: Research integrity: improving training and trainer quality
The symposium brings together experts and stakeholders from different areas of research integrity to discuss the key challenges 2,3,4 and 7 of the position paper “Seven challenges for research integrity education: current status and recommendations” (https://osf.io/5w9kg/). The symposium strives to enhance opportunities for effective training and trainer quality in the future. The symposium features three up-to-date talks.
Firstly, the talk on “(Non-)Effective FAIR Training” (by Julia Prieß-Buchheit) documents step-by-step a study evaluating FAIR training, pointing out the status quo of learning objectives in FAIR training and possible ways to measure them. The talk on “Opportunities and Challenges in Fostering Research Integrity in Malaysia” (by De-Ming Chau, Universiti Putra Malaysia) unveils national endeavors and characteristics in research integrity capacity building.
Finally, the “Measuring Effectiveness of RCR education” (by Mariette van den Hoven et al.) talk provides insights into an international meta-analysis on how to evaluate the impact of RCR education. It highlights the importance of observing the effectiveness of training programs to ensure that they foster research integrity and quality.
Chair:
Julia Priess-Buchheit, Researcher/professor, Christian-albrechts-universität, Germany.
Moderators and contributors:
Moderator: Marie Alavi, Zentrum für Konstruktive Erziehungswissenschaft, Germany
Speaker 1:
Julia Prieß-Buchheit, Christian-Albrechts Universität Kiel, Germany.
Speaker 2:
De-Ming Chau, Universiti Putra Malaysia
Speaker 3:
Mariette van den Hoven, Amsterdam UMC, Netherlands.
Symposium 7: The intersection of research integrity and academic integrity: multi-country perspectives
Historically, academic integrity has been viewed as a matter of student conduct. This view was relevant in an age where students’ only role was to learn in a classroom. Since the 1980s there has been an increase in the number of students who work while attending post-secondary institutions, as well as those research and publish. The rise of the PhD by publication means that graduate students are simultaneously learners, researchers, and mobilizers of knowledge. Yet, few graduate students receive training on research integrity or publication ethics. Moreover, most academic integrity policies make no provisions for research or publishing and most research integrity policies are directed towards professors or researchers and omit students. There are significant policy gaps in universities and research institutes to account for students and precariously employed researchers, leaving them vulnerable to mistreatment, as well as unintentional errors. We are unaware of any conference symposium that has directly addressed this specific area. There is an urgent need to update our understanding of academic integrity to include research integrity and ethics. This session brings together scholars of both academic integrity and research integrity from Canada, Ireland, Finland and Estonia to offer multi-country perspectives on policy and praxis.
Chair:
Sarah Elaine Eaton, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada.
Moderators and contributors
The proposed symposium will feature 4 speakers and 1 moderator from 4 countries (Canada, Ireland, Finland, and Estonia). Each of the countries represented by the panellists has a different level of regulation and different research innovation systems. We propose that presenters speak for 15 minutes each, with limited questions after each presentation. The session will conclude with a moderated discussion involving all speakers and the audience. Each proposed speaker has been contacted by the moderator and has agreed to speak on the topics proposed below.
Moderator: Associate Prof. Sarah Elaine Eaton, University of Calgary, Canada has a research program focused on academic integrity, fraud, and corruption in higher education. She is leading a multi-university transdisciplinary research team to study the ethical implications of the use of artificial intelligence for teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education. Through her research she proposes that a holistic and comprehensive approach to academic integrity must include but extend beyond historical norms that focus merely on student conduct, to include broader applications of integrity that include research, publication, and leadership.
Presenter #1: Erika Löfström is professor of Education at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Finland, where she leads an international Master’s program in education. Her research areas include research ethics and integrity and related teaching, learning and supervision processes, as well as academic writing. She teaches research ethics and integrity, and supervises Master’s students and PhD candidates. She chairs the University of Helsinki Ethics Expert Board, which advises the Rector on ethical matters. Löfström is actively involved in European development work in research ethics and integrity, and hopes to unravel learning processes and develop approaches to analyse these.
Presenter #2: Dr Anu Tammeleht is a research fellow in ethics and a methodologist/trainer of research ethics at the Centre for Ethics, University of Tartu, Estonia. She is also a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki. She is a designer of research ethics and integrity training resources and a facilitator of trainings of different formats at higher education institutions in Estonia. Her research area involves development of ethics competencies and evaluating the effectiveness of research ethics and integrity training. She also contributes to developing the national research ethics and integrity system through national surveys, policy recommendations and presentations. She believes that a systems approach to research ethics and integrity would help develop the culture of integrity and enhance the quality of research overall.
Presenter #3: Brenda M. Stoesz, University of Manitoba, Canada, is a Senior Faculty Specialist (Science of Teaching and Learning & Academic Integrity) at the Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. Dr. Stoesz provides support for university educators through facilitation of workshops and the development of teaching and learning resources, specifically those related to academic integrity. As a researcher, her interests vary widely from academic integrity and learning technologies to assessment and diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders and processing of visual stimuli. Dr. Stoesz is the founder of the Manitoba Academic Integrity Network (MAIN) and works to connect this network to others across Canada and around the world.
Symposium 8: Toward responsible clinical trial data sharing practices
Data are the core output of empirical research. Sharing of clinical trial data, including metadata and data analysis plans, has great potential to accelerate scientific progress, and enhance the value and trustworthiness of research. For example, open data sharing enables reproducibility of studies and may lead to detection of questionable research practices like p-hacking and selective publication and investigating allegations of fabrication and falsification. Increasingly data sharing is encouraged or required by funders of clinical trials and journals. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) equally considers data sharing as an “ethical obligation”. Despite the benefits of open data, operationalising data sharing practices in clinical trials remained suboptimal and, in low and middle income countries (LMICs) particularly challenging. Even in journal articles, all too often the intentions to share data are not fulfilled. Greater rewarding of best practices can incentivize researchers to share data openly and to also use data available in open repositories. Improving and incentivising data sharing practices would require an active involvement of many stakeholders including sponsors, funders, editors, and clinical trial participants. It also takes training a new generation of researchers who are able to share and reuse data responsibly.
In this session, we plan to discuss 1/ how to improve data sharing for research projects globally with particular focus on LMICs, 2/ COPE’s position on the actualising data sharing statements in published articles, 3/ the ethics and incentives for clinical trial data sharing, and 4/ to present a comprehensive data sharing training initiative.
Chair:
Florian Naudet, Professor Of Therapeutics, Université de Rennes, France.
Moderators and contributors:
Moderator:
Florian Naudet, MD, PhD, Professor
Université de Rennes and Institut Universitaire de France
Proposed lecturers:
1. Clinical trial data sharing and the global south:
Nchangwi Syntia Munung, PhD, Researcher
University of Cape Town
2. COPE positions about management of empty promises
Daniel Kulp, PhD, senior director (American Chemical Society)
COPE (chair)
3. Ethics and incentives for clinical trial data sharing:
Jennifer Ellen Miller, PhD, Associate professor
Yale School of Medicine
4. An initiative to train researchers and staff (SHARE-CTD doctoral network)
Ulrich Mansmann, PhD, Professor
LMU (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität)
Symposium 9: A policy agenda to address industry influence on research integrity
Corporations across sectors engage in systematic behind-the-scenes efforts and strategies to shape the available scientific knowledge and to influence experts in ways that allow maximizing earning-capacity. Meta-research has documented associations between industry sponsorship and author conflicts of interest with biases favoring commercial interests at all phases of the research process including agenda setting, framing research questions, study design, reporting of results, drawing conclusions, and dissemination. Despite concerns about diminished public trust, compromised research integrity, and harms to public health, little has been done to implement meaningful policy change regarding industry’s activities related to scientific research. Drawing from perspectives in the social sciences and humanities, presenters will describe the multi-faceted, strategic mechanisms by which corporations seek to influence scientific research including research funding, industry affiliation, publication planning, ghost writing, and author conflicts of interest across scholarly disciplines and industry sectors. To think about addressing industry influence on research integrity, we propose concepts to think differently about threats to research integrity stemming from industry activities that attend to the systems and structural level and bridge approaches across areas of research and industry sectors. Participants will have the opportunity to engage in discussion with the panel to chart a research, policy, and policy implementation agenda to address risks to research integrity from industry sponsorship.
Chair and moderator:
Quinn Grundy, PhD, RN, Assistant Professor with the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto will discuss the need to address industry influence on research at a structural level and introduce the panel.
Contributors
Marc-André Gagnon, Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, will provide a conceptual introduction to ghost management to better understand the mechanisms by which industry sponsors influence research agendas, conduct, and dissemination. Drawing from an ongoing empirical and theoretical program of research, Prof Gagnon will provide concrete examples of ghost management from the pharmaceutical and agro-chemicals sectors.
Scott Graham, Associate Professor in the Department of Rhetoric & Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, will discuss the ways that policy formation related to addressing industry influence on research integrity has been stymied through argumentative “wedges” and suggest strategies to disrupt these wedges of manufactured controversies toward effective policy development.
Andreas Lundh, Associate Professor, Cochrane Danmark & Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine Odense (CEBMO), University of Southern Denmark, will describe the benefits of a comparative approach, noting learnings from a comparative scoping review of conflict of interest policies across research disciplines.
Lisa Parker, Honorary Senior Lecturer, The University of Sydney, Australia will describe a stepped risk assessment matrix to identify levels of threat from industry involvement and corresponding management strategies that can be applied across fields of research and industry sectors.
Presentations will be followed by interactive discussion with participants and the panel of contributors to discuss the implications for a research and policy agenda.
Symposium 10: Governance of research integrity in the era of open science
Chair:
Rosemarie De La Cruz Bernabe, Professor of Research Ethics and Research Integrity, University of Oslo, Norway.
The academic world has officially entered the era of Open Science (OS) where scientific knowledge, whether in the form of data, methods and processes, laboratory notebooks, scientific analysis, and results are more accessible to academic and citizen scientists;where the public has not only access to science but more opportunities to contribute to it;and where interdisciplinary, international, and multi-stakeholder collaborations are encouraged, all for the greater benefit of science and society. However, effective implementation of OS requires an effective ethics and integrity-based governance structure, as well as a ubiquitous mindset. In the presence or absence of these factors, or in the case of presence in what degree, inequalities, biases, and questionable research practices are created, recreated, or strengthened. A strong governance structure founded on ethics and integrity is crucial for successful OS implementation. The ROSiE Symposium aims to explore the various aspects of OS and discuss the practices and governance required for responsible implementation in Europe. The symposium will provide insights from experts directly involved in OS and its governance and will present the ECoC OS complement and the first-ever ethics and integrity guidelines in Europe,i.e., the ROSiE General Guidelines on Responsible OS,as well as the Field-Specific Ethics and Integrity Guidelines.
Moderators and contributors:
Rosemarie Bernabe, Professor of Research Ethics and Research Integrity, Project Coordinator of ROSiE, University of Oslo; Adjunct Professor Medical Research Ethics, University of South-Eastern Norway.
Teodora Konach, Austrian Agency for Research Integrity.
Olivier Le Gall, Senior Researcher, INRAE France, and Chair of the Board of the French Office for Research Integrity – OFIS.
Signe Mezinska, Associate Professor, University of Latvia
1. Introduction (3 minutes) Rosemarie Bernabe
• Welcome and introduction to the Symposium
2. Presentation 1 (12 minutes for presentation & 5 minutes for Q&A; total: 17 mins): Understanding Open Science: Opportunities, Challenges and Solutions (Signe Mezinska)
The role of training on responsible Open Science in the RI governance process
3. Presentations 2 (12 minutes for each presentation & 5 minutes each for Q&A; total: 17 mins): Will technology enable responsible open science? (Olivier Le Gall)
4. Presentation 3 & 4 (12 minutes for each presentation & 5 minutes each for Q&A; total: 34 mins) Overview of the ROSiE project
• ROSiE complement to the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. ROSiE General Guidelines on Responsible Open Science. (Rosemarie Bernabe)
• ROSiE field-specific ethics and integrity guidelines on OS (Teodora Konach)
5. Roundtable Discussion: Challenges and Opportunities for Responsible Open Science in Europe (17 minutes)
• Panel discussion involving the speakers.
• Address questions from the audience and explore the challenges, opportunities, and potential solutions for implementing responsible Open Science in Europe.
6. Closing remarks (2 minutes)
