8

Key Needs to Address Going Forward

The final panel was designed to identify priorities for strengthening professional development resources and opportunities for research leaders. Planning committee member Gregory Weiss, University of California, Irvine, asked presenters to share ideas and concrete actions that research institutions, funders, professional societies, and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine can take in the midst of leadership challenges arising from bigger, cross-institutional, and more complex projects and teams. The presenters were Lex Bouter, World Conferences on Research Integrity Foundation (WCRIF); Sheila Garrity, Office of Research Integrity (ORI), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS); Geeta Swamy, Duke University; and Jason Borenstein, National Science Foundation (NSF).

As at the end of the first day of workshop, the panel discussed takeaway messages shared by planning committee members.

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

As Bouter explained, about 10 years ago, several large research scandals led to increased codification of research conduct in Europe. The attention shifted from issues around falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism (FFP) to prevention of these problems through responsible research practices. At the same time, a crisis around replication of research was recognized, which led to the need for transparency and open science. These concepts are inter-

related in the sense that open data and open methods can prevent FFP and promote research quality, Bouter said. Interventions aimed at people, the research climate, and the research system can improve science, but research is needed to build an evidence base to understand which policies and interventions work best. Research on integrity, open science, and replicability has been funded by the European Union (EU), national governments, and foundations.

Bouter highlighted priorities aimed at individuals, institutions, and systems. First is the need to train academic leaders in leadership and responsible conduct of research (RCR) practices. As an example, he described Superb Supervision, a program that trains young supervisors in how to supervise their Ph.D. students.¹ Courses are also designed for deans, rectors, and other senior leaders. Second, institutions, including funders and universities, should develop coherent policies, processes, and education to empower researchers on the RCR, Bouter said. One of the most interesting resources in the European Union is the Standard Operating Procedures for Research Integrity consortium. It provides 130 tools for universities and funders, many of which have been piloted and may be an example for the United States.² Third, he said, reform is needed in how researchers are assessed. He acknowledged this is not a new concept, but he underscored that career advancement should be based not solely on citations, publications, and grant funding but also on such points as RCR, being a strong curator and peer reviewer, and helping colleagues. In this regard, he called attention to the Hong Kong Principles issued by the World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI) on research integrity in the assessment, evaluation, and reward system of researchers.³

Bouter concluded with an invitation to participate in the next WCRI in Athens, June 2024, which will cover many of the issues brought up in the workshop and will develop a statement on the translation of responsible research into trustworthy policy and innovation.⁴ The WCRI board has two members who represent the interests of early-career researchers, and they are helping to organize programming on such issues as leadership and mentorship for early-career and other emerging leaders, he added.

___________________

¹ For more information, see https://www.amsterdamumc.org/en/phd-student/phd-supervision/superb-supervision-course-mentoring-your-phd-candidate-.htm.

² For more information, see https://sops4ri.eu/.

³ To read the principles, see https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32673304/.

⁴ For more information, see https://wcri2024.org/.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE OFFICE OF RESEARCH INTEGRITY

Garrity began by reflecting on points the workshop has raised for her as director of ORI in HHS. First, she observed that participants at the workshop did not know about many of the leadership and RCR resources available, which speaks to the need to make the broader community aware of them. She took note of discussions that differentiated between training and professional development, as well as newer understanding about RCR so it is not just a check-the-box exercise. She underscored the point made by others that so-called soft skills are critical skills on par with scientific expertise. The process to develop these skills is long since leaders are made, not born. Bullies still operate, and participants are concerned about how to manage them and avoid negative consequences. Research is needed, as was noted, to understand why some people engage in clandestine, unethical, or hostile behaviors that may derail their careers. She suggested studies on ways to build resilience in leaders and to develop the next generation of ethical research leaders. She also commented on the opportunity not only to develop more junior scientists but also to learn from them. The power skills they value, including compassion, mindfulness, and kindness, should not be ignored.

She noted ORI, which she has directed since March 2023, has a role to play. ORI is often associated with research misconduct cases, she acknowledged, but it does more than oversight review and needs to make sure that people understand its activities and share tools.

INSTITUTIONAL-LEVEL EFFORTS

Swamy focused on “tangible real-world” efforts at Duke University as an example of what can happen at an institutional level. An obstetrician/gynecologist by training, she became involved in oversight and the regulatory space from her own research experiences. Duke committed some research missteps from about 2015 to 2018, she said, but grew from this situation and continues to move forward. The leadership realized that significant issues require more than a band-aid at the individual lab level; they require deeper thought about why they occurred and how a culture of integrity can be built. From this came a framework to be inclusive, comprehensive, multifaceted, and pragmatic and to empower people across the research enterprise.

Policies about what is required must be in place, Swamy said. Incentives are useful, but there must be normative, accepted practices and procedures that are straightforward and relatively easy to implement. It should not be hard to do the right thing, and she warned against continually adding new requirements that researchers must meet. Words matter at the leadership level, she continued. She reflected on Garrity’s comment (see above) that many people equate the ORI with research misconduct. In this regard, she said programs at Duke use the terms “quality” and “accountability” rather than “integrity” and “compliance.” The focus is on RCR “education” as a value-add rather than “training” to check a box. If a requirement must be completed by a certain date, an explanation is provided about why, and feedback is invited.

Duke is now in Year 5 of its Research Quality Management Program (RQMP), which she explained is synonymous with many elements of the research integrity landscape.⁵ It started in the School of Medicine but now extends to all departments, centers, and institutes. A key piece is for each unit to create a Science Culture and Accountability Plan (SCAP). With a framework to build from, the plans range from simple to detailed and are from one to five pages. The plans are posted and every person within a unit attests they have read their Plan. Each unit also has a research quality team, consisting of a researcher and administrator. They meet regularly and have metrics tied to leaders’ performances. An RCR education program is required for all faculty and staff engaged in research, with online and interactive components. The interactive aspect is particularly valuable, she noted. It goes beyond issues of fabrication and plagiarism to encompass bullying and harassment, bystander training, and conflict resolution. Feedback is that opening the interactive sessions for faculty and staff to participate together helps create a more inclusive environment.

From her perspective as a funded researcher, Swamy commented that leadership, management, and mentoring are not usually accounted for in people’s time, effort, and compensation. Somehow, the expectation is these skills will be learned on the side. Career development awards require the awardees have a mentor, but there are usually no mechanisms to fund the requirement. Similarly, researchers are not expected to include participation in institutional review boards and other activities related to research citizenship in their portfolios. Until those activities are raised to the same

___________________

⁵ For more information, see https://myresearchpath.duke.edu/topics/research-quality-management-program-rqmp.

level of importance as publications or grants received, they will not be perceived as of equal value, she said.

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION’S ETHICAL AND RESPONSIBLE RESEARCH PROGRAM

Borenstein introduced NSF’s Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) program.⁶ He clarified that NSF uses the term “responsible and ethical conduct of research,” or RECR, rather than “responsible conduct of research.” Thus, the acronym RECR appears in NSF materials, including in its Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG).⁷ Agreeing with other participants, he said education in RECR is essential in the preparation of future scientists and engineers, which is tied to the focus of the ER2 program.

ER2 started in 2019 but is informed by two prior funding programs. Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (EESE) ran from 2005 to 2013, largely focused on graduate education in STEM, to deepen the understanding of ethics and provide cutting-edge effective ethics education materials to train the next generation of scientists and engineers. Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM (CCE STEM) ran from 2014 to 2018 and focused on what constitutes RCR as well as which cultural and institutional contexts promote ethical STEM research and practice, and why.

ER2 is a partnership across eight directorates and one office within NSF, which highlights that RECR spans all fields. The program scope reaches across all career stages, not just graduate students, and sectors, including practitioners, researchers, educators, and professional societies. He also noted that the research questions posed by ER2 reflect some of the workshop discussions: (1) what constitutes RECR and why; (2) what are the similarities and differences between RECR norms in different STEM communities, and what can these communities learn from one another; (3) which organizational practices, contexts, and incentives promote RECR in STEM research and why; and (4) which practices contribute to establishing and maintaining ethical cultures, and how can these practices be transferred and integrated into other research and learning settings?

___________________

⁶ For information, see https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/ethical-responsible-research-er2.

⁷ See Chapter IX: Recipient Standards in the PAPPG at https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=papp.

DISCUSSION

Session Discussion

Weiss asked participants for concrete steps to strengthen professional development for RCR at the leadership level. Garrity commented on the struggle to bring together the many issues discussed throughout the workshop in a coherent manner. She urged more conversations on these issues and hoped ORI could work further with the National Academies to lead to action. Jenny Heimberg, the National Academies, reflected on a comment by Swamy that change begins with making things possible, easy, and normative. She asked Swamy about the type of infrastructure that is needed to make it easy for lab leaders. Swamy observed that the answer is a continual process that must keep up with the times. What makes it work at Duke, she said, is to expect that everyone take part. There cannot be a separate group producing content and sending it out; rather, lab and unit levels must have ownership to help deliver the message. She also noted that RQMP has made changes incrementally over the five years of the program. Weiss suggested a concrete step might be to roll best practices out on a larger scale. Swamy commented on the need to define and re-define best practices from a variety of sources. She also stressed RQMP’s value-add so researchers feel they are learning something to make their research better, not just comply with requirements.

Wolf asked about the needs of investigators who are part of multi-institutional projects and consortia. They may be asserting leadership not just at the level of a lab but across multiple institutions with different practices and policies. Swamy acknowledged that she can only directly impact leaders at her own institution, but RCR education includes discussion of collaboration, authorship disputes, and expectations of professionalism. Wolf reflected that, in her view, the National Academies can play a key role because team science crosses institutions that may have divergent approaches. Bouter offered an example of a practice that promotes a responsible research culture. A group in Amsterdam studying dementia meets four times a year for sessions devoted to discussions of their dilemmas, doubts, errors, and close calls. A key ingredient is that the leaders start the discussion by sharing their own missteps, doubts, or close calls. In addition, these sessions are not in response to a specific incident or scandal but take place on an ongoing basis.

Maritza Salazar Campo, University of California, Irvine, reminded the group about research to create organizations that do things ethically and to

train leaders to be more effective. The question is why it is difficult for this research and practice to take root among scientists. As a possible reason, she referred to Swamy’s point that rewards and policies from the top can create a space that can shift practices. She also referred to President Drake’s comment on the risk of mentors’ blind spots overly influencing their mentees. A participant who introduced herself as a cognitive scientist and biostatistician offered that she and colleagues apply their expertise in educational design, curriculum development, and assessment to address some of the concerns raised during the workshop, such as how to gather evidence to back up a claim that a practice is indeed “best” or “promising.” History should not be the evidence relied upon to promote best practices or changes in practice, she underscored. One promising area is the concept of stewardship, exemplified in the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, in which a steward is defined as “someone to whom the vigor, quality, and integrity of the field can be entrusted.”⁸

Weiss asked the panelists about pressure points at different scales of leadership. Garrity agreed that scale is a critical question, and she urged not losing sight of measuring impact of what is implemented. Swamy said while measuring efficacy and effectiveness is important, it should be kept in mind that people in academia want to advance their education and intellectual pursuits. The educational value-add is to show how RCR can make their work the best it can be. Bouter highlighted two supervision scales: supervision for survival and supervision for responsible research.⁹ Learning to supervise for survival may mean learning how to cut corners to get more funding and citations. Those who supervise in this way are more involved in questionable research practices, he said. In contrast, supervision for responsible research involves learning how to be a good scholar, be helpful to others, curate data, not fall under academia’s current perverse incentives, and be a good mentor. Courses on leadership should emphasize supervision for responsible research, he said.

Stephen Fiore, University of Central Florida, referred to an effort by Kara Hall, National Cancer Institute, to cross-map concepts from team science to those for RCR. This approach helps identify complex problems before rushing to solutions that may or may not be most relevant and may have application here, he suggested. When asked by Garrity for input, Tom

___________________

⁸ For more information on the Carnegie Initiative publications, see http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org/cid/.

⁹ For more information, see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0263023.

Arrison, the National Academies, recounted that in the early 2000s, the National Academies’ Division on Earth and Life Studies (DELS) issued a consensus report on improving undergraduate biology education, which incorporated insights needed from research on science education (NRC, 2003). After the report, DELS initiated summer institutes on the improvement of undergraduate biology education. Faculty learned the latest findings on teaching biology, developed curricula, and formed a community. He commented on the effort as an example of the National Academies serving in a convening capacity. Another DELS initiative promoted international RCR in response to concerns about misuse of life sciences research in some countries. With U.S. Department of State funding, research leaders participated in institutes that combined the science of science education, RCR curriculum development, and community building (NRC, 2013). Perhaps summer institutes for scientific leadership for ethical and responsible research could be considered, Arrison suggested. For example, regional meetings could be held for faculty that would denote some prestige to be invited, and participants could learn from leadership and team science research and create their own RCR plans.

Day 2 Concluding Discussion

Moving to a final discussion among the planning committee, Masucci commented on the fruitful sessions and invited members to share their suggestions and synthesize the information they heard. She invited participants to identify areas that they think are relevant that were not covered. She also asked participants to think about what they could do to move forward or to identify other groups with whom to interact, with the National Academies perhaps playing a convening role or otherwise helping to effect change.

Wolf noted the workshop proceedings will serve to motivate the National Academies and research institutions to ensure that training for scientific leaders in research ethics and RCR is an area of concern given the current lack of training for research leaders on the specific ethical issues that arise in complex scientific teams. She shared that when the Strategic Council suggested the workshop, a question was whether something similar to On Being a Scientist (NAS, NAE, and IOM, 2009) would be helpful for scientific leaders. She suggested the National Academies should consider what format would be best; that might not be a book but instead might be a more flexible format like a website or other vehicle that could include case studies. While there are many resources on research integrity for indi-

vidual researchers, she related that she has found few pertaining to scientific leadership to ensure ethical research conduct at a large cross-institutional, cross-disciplinary scale.

Acknowledging the many valuable resources mentioned throughout the workshop, Wolf posed the possibility of assembling them in a living collection with narrative to point out the different challenges that leaders face. She also noted the National Academies consensus committee being formed on team science and the opportunity to integrate attention to ethics and RCR in team science. If that committee does not foreground ethics and RCR, she asked whether these issues should be covered in a separate study. She also referred to Fiore’s earlier description of concept-mapping to understand the relationship between the literature on the science of team science and on leadership and suggested more conceptual work on what is specific to RCR, ethics, compliance, integrity, inclusion, and related issues. She commented that she appreciated the workshop title “On Leading a Lab,” but future efforts should suggest thinking beyond the lab level. She returned to three suggestions to consider: Pull together resources, build a community of practice as suggested by Michael Witherell, and consider a consensus study, whether as part of the new team science study or as a separate effort.

Fiore commented on different leadership theories and their relevance to scientific leadership and RCR. Many leadership competencies, such as empathy and communications, are needed to be good collaborators, he noted. He said learning these skills can be woven into cases studies, courses, summer programs, and other efforts. A participant noted he edited a journal on leadership for many years, and much is known about leadership of creative efforts. He strongly urged familiarity with the literature on leadership in industries requiring creativity and innovation if a National Academies study or other activity is undertaken.

Masucci said something not fully brought up during the workshop is how to reduce administrative burden across the landscape. In her role with a Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP), she concurred with Swamy about the need to be proactive rather than just learn how to deal with regulations. In the FDP environment, research security and related issues, including possible legislative mandates, are part of RCR. These trend lines need to be factored in, she said. She also noted that in the federal landscape, regulatory guidelines affecting the research enterprise are increasing, and an issue is how to intervene on behalf of principal investigators (PIs). The institutional role to meet these requirements needs to be better understood, or else PIs and administrators are left to address these issues on their own.

When asked about the potential relevance of the White House Scientific Integrity Task Force to the topics under discussion, Garrity said one goal of the task force is to harmonize across agencies that have been siloed in their research integrity policies.¹⁰ Lyric Jorgenson, NIH, added that each agency is required to have its own scientific integrity official, and agencies that fund, conduct, or oversee scientific research are also required to have a chief scientist; both roles will ensure conformance to standards and expectations for taxpayer-funded research. For the first time, there is a standard U.S. government definition of scientific integrity and a cadre of experts to work through its application.

As another idea, a participant (see, for example, Box 8-1) suggested articles in scientific journals on the topics discussed. A journal editor herself, she said she was thinking how to include these topics in her journal, perhaps in a column or a series of short articles that point to existing resources.

Tim Akers, Morgan State University, commented that in recent years, many universities, agencies, companies, and other entities have been approaching Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions. If faculty are not trained in the topics discussed at the workshop in their first years, they are at a disadvantage when they go for tenure, he said. He commented that when he mentors, he helps mentees build partnerships, but he does not want to direct them to mentors who have biases. This cannot be dismissed, he stressed, and noted the importance of understanding what historically underrepresented people and institutions have had to endure for decades. Michael O’Rourke, Michigan State University, urged more attention to epistemic dimensions of leadership that are often considered under the category of RCR, which include intellectual humility and respect for epistemological differences across academic and other sectors. He also noted topics currently being discussed in social and Black feminist epistemology, such as testimonial injustice and epistemic exclusion that can have chilling effects on lab culture and other relevant areas.

Responding to some of the suggestions, Arrison suggested that release of the workshop proceedings may be timed to coincide with a Strategic Council meeting or as a webinar to call more attention to the discussion. He also cautioned about the difficulty for the National Academies to maintain a continually updated website, given the institution’s structure and funding.

___________________

¹⁰ For more information, see https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/ostps-teams/nstc/scientific-integrity-task-force/.

However, he pointed to the Online Ethics Center created in the National Academy of Engineering that is now maintained at the University of Virginia as an example of a sustainable partnership. Other ideas are to create a module to add to an existing website or publish an article in Issues in Science and Technology. Wolf asked about the plan to revise the National Academies report On Being a Scientist. Frazier Benya, the National Academies, explained the current plan is to create a digital-first publication available on the National Academies Press website. It will be broken into modules that can be updated or supplemented with new topics. A primary committee will be convened, as well as a series of panels to focus on the modules, which will be reviewed. In the long term, she said, a body at the National Academies will signal when a new module is needed, with the current plan being that the Committee on Science, Engineering, Medicine, and Public Policy (COSEMPUP) serve in this capacity. Wolf suggested that this model could be useful to build a separate resource for leaders.

Masucci concurred with a comment by Hall on the connection between RCR and declining public trust in science. Leaders play an important role in the effort to instill trust in science and address societal concerns. As another issue, Umut Gurkan, Case Western Reserve University, brought up that some lab leaders are involved in industry, such as through start-ups, translational research, or commercialization. He raised the issue of potential conflicts of interest that come into play in these cases, and he noted this issue will increase in the future. This issue is on the agenda of the next WCRI, it was pointed out.

Masucci closed with thanks to the planning committee, participants, staff, and sponsors, and she urged input from all in the future.

REFERENCES