Torna a: Researcher Masterclass: The Essence of Research Success

The Ethics of Science

A research career depends on trust in your findings and professional conduct. This lesson examines the responsibilities of authors, employers, journals, and reviewers. It will help you recognize unethical practices, assess risks in your own environment, and prepare to make responsible research and publishing decisions.

Lezione 3

Ethical Research and Publishing

Research ethics applies throughout the research process, including experiments, data management, and work involving human participants or animals. Follow the requirements of your field, institution, and publication venue.

This lesson focuses primarily on publication ethics: how research findings are reported, how contributions are acknowledged, and how publishing decisions can affect the reliability of scientific knowledge.

Honest Reporting of Research Findings

Present your methods, data, and results accurately. Findings that contradict your expectations can still provide valuable knowledge.

Practices that compromise the scientific record include:

• Fabrication and falsification: inventing data or altering results to support a preferred conclusion.
• P-hacking: repeatedly changing analyses, exclusions, or statistical settings to obtain a desired level of significance.
• Cherry picking: presenting supportive findings while omitting relevant contradictory evidence.
• HARKing: developing a hypothesis after seeing the results and presenting it as if it had been defined before the study.
• Paper mills: producing fraudulent manuscripts or selling authorship positions.

Plagiarism and Responsible AI Use

Acknowledge the original source whenever you use another person’s ideas, methods, data, figures, or text. Appropriate attribution also applies when you build upon your own previous publications. Similarity detection tools, such as Turnitin and iThenticate, can help identify text that requires closer examination before submission. Check whether your institution provides access and review any flagged passages carefully.

When using AI for language improvement or stylistic editing:

• Verify the accuracy and meaning of its output.
• Check that revisions preserve your intended scientific claims.
• Follow the journal’s requirements for declaring AI use.
• Accept responsibility for the entire manuscript.

Authors allways remain responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of their publications.

Relevant Citations and Transparent Authorship

References should support the scientific content of your manuscript. Citing irrelevant publications to increase metrics or influence editors and reviewers constitutes citation manipulation. The same concern applies to groups that systematically exchange unnecessary citations.

Authorship should reflect meaningful contributions. Avoid honorary or gift authorship, and include everyone who meets the applicable authorship criteria.

You can rely on the ICMJE authorship criteria, which require:

1. A substantial contribution to the research.
2. Participation in drafting or critically revising the manuscript.
3. Approval of the final version.
4. Responsibility for the integrity of the work.

The Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT) helps describe individual contributions, including conceptualization, methodology, investigation, analysis, and writing. Use contribution statements to make responsibilities transparent.

Ethical Responsibilities of Employers

Research institutions should provide conditions that support responsible work. Unrealistic publication expectations, excessive workloads, and insufficient recognition can create pressure that undermines research quality.

Recognize these risks in your own environment and maintain your ethical standards when facing pressure to improve performance indicators. Where possible, raise concerns through appropriate discussions and institutional channels. A supportive research environment allows ethical concerns to be addressed openly. Your professional credibility should remain a central consideration when evaluating your working conditions.

Evaluating Journals and Peer Review

Predatory Publishing

Predatory journals prioritize collecting fees while failing to provide appropriate quality checks.

Legitimate Gold Open Access publishing can also involve an Article Processing Charge. Assess the journal’s editorial standards and peer-review practices when evaluating its credibility.

You can use the following resources to identify predatory journals:

• Institutional or national publishing recommendations.
• The Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers, often called the Norwegian List.
• Cabells Predatory Reports, where institutional access is available.
• Beall’s List and other relevant journal-evaluation resources.

Journal and Reviewer Misconduct

Ethical problems can also arise during editorial assessment and peer review. Examples include unnecessary citation requests, manipulated peer review, artificial rejection practices, and editorial bias.

Reviewers must respect the confidentiality of unpublished research and avoid using it for personal advantage. Idea theft, suppressing competitors, and allowing conflicts of interest to influence an assessment undermine fair evaluation. If you encounter unreasonable citation requests or other concerns, consider raising them with the journal editor.

Assignment: Evaluate Your Research Ethics Awareness

Assess your preparedness for ethical research and publishing.

1. Download the provided worksheet and identify trusted resources for evaluating journals and detecting predatory publishing.
2. Check your access to plagiarism detection tools. Establish how you can access a reliable service before submitting future manuscripts.
3. Evaluate ethical risks in your research environment, including pressures, practices, or publishing experiences that may affect research integrity.
4. Reflect on your previous publishing practices and define actions for improvement. Record how you will address the risks you identify.

If you are concerned about storing sensitive reflections on your work computer, you may complete the exercise using a handwritten table. The purpose is to strengthen your awareness and prepare practical actions that protect the reliability of your research and the trust others place in your work.

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