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But scientists have been trying to promote a research integrity office for years. In late 2017, it was discussed at a meeting attended by representatives from the Australian Research Council, the National Health and Medical Research Council, Chief Scientist and Minister of Health’s Office Greg Hunt. People familiar with the meeting said that while major research bodies supported the proposal, it was actively opposed by Universities Australia and was later shelved.
Professor Chubb said the current model was developed after academy fellows raised the issue in May last year. The cases should be sorted so that the office only deals with the most serious cases, and this is expected to cost around $ 5 million, although it is not certain how many cases would emerge.
Among those who raised concerns was University of Melbourne scientist Peter Brooks, who was commissioned by UNSW in 2013 to investigate a research misconduct complaint against a senior researcher.
“The terms of reference were incredibly strict, so we couldn’t deviate from them,†Professor Brooks said.
Professor Brooks concluded that the professor had committed offenses that did not amount to research misconduct, but discovered other issues during his investigation which the university chose to refer to separate committees, none of which was allowed to draw conclusions about a pattern of behavior.
“It was a very, very disappointing and unfortunate situation,” said Professor Brooks.
Each of the five committees cleared the professor of research misconduct, believing the violations to be the result of actual error or honest oversight. UNSW said in a statement that the findings were then reviewed together by another independent external panel and still did not constitute a research fault.
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Professor Brooks, who has conducted several investigations into academic misconduct, said the higher education system is so dependent on international students and research funding that universities could hardly afford to lose senior researchers.
At the same time, financial and professional incentives have been given to researchers who publish extensively or publish in journals classified as having high impact. This created conditions for academics to conduct botched or even fraudulent research. Other scientists then read the articles and spend years trying to replicate the experiments or develop them further.
“The opportunity costs are huge because it costs money that could have been used for legitimate research,†Professor Brooks said. “And a lot of times they’ve been funded by the National Board of Health and Medical Research, so it’s a really serious problem.”
Simon Gandevia, a senior scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia who also campaigned for a research integrity office, said the system was not working.
“The system in which malpractice is dealt with internally is inappropriate and we need a transparent system where we know who is being investigated and for what they are being investigated, and a external body is what we need for that. “
The process of investigating an academic for research malpractice can be costly and legally burdensome for universities. The allegations of scientific misconduct against UNSW professor Bruce Hall in 2001 took more than two years and four separate investigations to resolve, with lawyers involved at every stage. Professor Hall was convicted of misconduct, but Vice-Chancellor Rory Hume allowed him to keep his job. However, Professor Hume’s handling of the case came under heavy criticism and he resigned under pressure from the council in 2004.
There is also a perception among academics that correcting the record could damage their reputation, as cell genomics researcher Joseph Powell discovered in 2014. The then University of Queensland researcher found out after the publication of one of his articles in Nature that the statistical test he used – a standard methodology – yielded a higher rate of false positives than expected, and asked the newspaper to withdraw the article. Nature then published the new results.
But the decision to retract was not unanimously accepted by its co-authors. One of them felt that a retraction would unduly punish the team when they had acted in good faith.
“It was a really tough scenario for us,†said Professor Powell, who now works at the Garvan Institute for Medical Research. “At the time, I was an early career researcher and it was possible that this was having a detrimental effect on my reputation. But it is interesting to note that it was almost exactly the opposite. I have had a lot of colleagues who have reached out and shown enthusiasm and have had no negative reactions.
Professor Chubb said the national watchdog would still allow people to make mistakes, but it would eliminate real mistakes from serious mistakes. It would also be up to him to impose sanctions, either on the individual or on the institution if he did not take the recommended measures. Institutions that choose not to join would lose public funding.
Prof Brooks said it was up to universities to agree to an independent research integrity commission.
“The risk is that, just as if politicians continue to lie and show no integrity, we start to ignore it,” Professor Brooks said. “It’s a great shame. It would be terrible if people started to disbelieve science. We’ve seen what happens when that happens, with anti-vaccines.
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