RI is central to our work at the Health Research Board. It is intrinsic to research excellence and the quality of research outputs and positive research culture, underpinning researchers’ trust in each other and the research record, and society’s trust in research evidence. Here are seven reasons why it’s so important.

1. RI safeguards research and scholarship

Achievements of research have amassed over centuries on internationally accumulated knowledge. In European innovation and economic advancement, the reliability and preservation of this knowledge is ever more crucial. As research becomes increasingly collaborative and open, it is essential that we ensure credibility of research, as anything less could have serious implications.

Rigour is the basis of high-quality research. Once knowledge is developed and validated, its integrity is based on the existing methods, materials and evidence used being generated without falsification, fabrication, bias or other poor research practices. Therefore, researchers have a responsibility to leave to posterity a solid foundation for the continuity of their work.

2. RI maintains public confidence

The intellectual contribution of the research community to society is vital to understanding how our physical, social, political and cultural environment works and what will enhance it. It leads to innovation in the biological and hard sciences that impacts on, and improves, the quality of our daily lives. It touches on every part of society, so it is critical society trusts it. That society includes fellow researchers, who rely on the truthfulness of the research record – the foundation upon which advances are built – to progress in their field and add to the store of knowledge worldwide. 

High-profile misconduct distorts social perception of research and affects the credibility of researchers. Research Integrity is key to avoid a situation where a disbelieving public will be more susceptible to the scare tactics and misinformation of pressure groups, whose arguments are intended to discredit research and bolster their own cause.

3. RI underpins investment and policymaking

Public investment in research is financed by taxes, so taxpayers can reasonably expect researchers to help solve societal challenges. Public support for research investment is not unlimited but is conditional on preserving the trust of the public in the credibility and validity of research evidence. Governments, who represent that public, approve investment in research to benefit citizens through societal and economic impacts. Disclosures of misconduct can have serious implications for public investment.

Secondly, researchers are regularly consulted by governments to provide expert opinion on many issues that involve policy choices. This was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Where poor policy choices are made, the public may blame the experts, but will certainly be impacted by those poor choices. In addition, alternatives to research expertise are often proposed, without much underlying evidence, by advocacy groups, and possibly inspired by political or religious ideologies. In such a crowded and often contradictory environment, it is particularly important that research is trusted as the basis for public policy.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, public awareness of and trust in the importance of research, data, and evidence to inform decision-making is greater than ever. Best practice in RI as employed by the HRB and other high quality research organisations will consolidate this.

4. RI protects reputations and careers

Research misconduct damages careers and reputations, and can cause significant collateral damage to students, colleagues, the associated fields of study and whistle-blowers. The assumption that self-regulation at an institutional level is sufficient to manage misconduct flies in the face of experience elsewhere. Self-regulation also fails to address the public need for accountability and transparency.

Since funding agencies and governments invest significantly in training and developing researchers, the highest level of research integrity is essential to ensure it represents a good use of national assets and talent.

5. RI prevents adverse impact on patients and the public

Research involving people or animals that yields unreliable results – for example through poor design – is unethical. It is also unethical to undertake research on people without their explicit consent. But more importantly, the application of flawed research results in clinical settings can strongly impact people.

If evidence from human clinical trials is not reported, reported inadequately, or dishonestly reported, this has serious implications. For example, missing data about adverse events in trials can harm patients, and incomplete data about risks and benefits can mean futile costs in the health system. The time-lag to retraction of flawed data also means it can be available for use by other researchers in clinical studies and treatment protocols for many years. Even when a flawed clinical paper is retracted, ongoing access to that paper on non-publisher websites remains a problem.

Finally, retracted clinical studies may impact people’s behaviours beyond their retraction. This is typified by the link established – and subsequently discredited – between vaccination and autism, which continues to impact the rate of MMR vaccination of children.

6. RI prevents avoidable waste of resources

Research misconduct and poor research practices can waste public money and human resources. Significant direct costs arise from studies whose publication outputs are ultimately retracted because of unreliable results, or whose findings are not reproducible. There are also indirect costs of unproductive research by researchers who have based their work on flawed data.

Since there isn’t Europe-wide agreement on procedures for dealing with research misconduct, especially in cross-border collaborations, transparency of the investigation process, systems of appeals, sanctions and enforcement is often limited, creating expensive legal challenges for institutions and governments. Even where good investigative and enforcement practices exist, litigation will inevitably arise.

There is also the indirect cost in the loss of public trust and goodwill, damage to researcher and institutional reputations, and to society, such as loss of life due to misinformation in medical literature.

A foundation of research integrity as built by the HRB can avoid all this waste.

7. RI promotes economic advancement

The link between high quality research and economic and societal advancement is internationally accepted. In Europe, investment in research happens within wider policy objectives. This aims to ensure Europe addresses its economic and societal challenges; competes effectively with global neighbours; and creates high-value, high-skilled employment, based on research-driven innovation and the successful application of research-generated knowledge. As a result, all European states support commercial exploitation of research, since economic prosperity is enhanced by knowledge transfer from public research outputs to companies and outreach to society.

The reliability of intellectual property owned by research institutions is extremely important from a legal perspective. If a patent is based on flawed research, the employing organisation and the author of the patent can be drawn into a dispute with the company or organisation that financed the use of this intellectual property. Misconduct may also result in the non-appropriation of research outputs by society or stakeholders and the ultimate waste of intellectual effort. RI ensures this does not happen.

In summary:

It is clear from these seven reasons that research organisations should place the highest importance on RI. It is intrinsic to:

  • Research excellence
  • The quality of research outputs
  • Positive research culture
  • Researchers’ trust in each other and the research record
  • Society’s trust in research evidence.

Hence RI underpins all our work at the Health Research Board, and is essential to the reputation, trust and credibility of our role as Ireland’s lead health funding agency supporting innovative health research and delivering data and evidence that improves people’s health and patient care. 

ENDS

This blog is adapted from this brochure published by Science Europe.

More about the Science Europe workshop on research ethics and integrity in the context of public engagement.

About the author:

Dr Maura Hiney is Head of International Cooperation, Evaluation and Targeted Programmes at the HRB. She has been influential in raising awareness of RI issues in Ireland and internationally. She was chair of the Science Europe Working Group on RI who authored a number of publications, including the brochure from which this blog is adapted. She is currently Treasurer of the World ConConference on RI Foundation, a Board member of the Embassy of Good Science Foundation, and Chair of the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Science and Ethics, with whom she co-wrote the European Code of Conduct for RI in 2017, and was Vice-Chair of the European Network of RI Offices until 2022. She sits on the Policy Advisory Boards of several EU-funded projects that conduct research on RI and is a partner in the SOPs4RI project developing a suite of good research practice SOPs for funders and institutions.