OAI12 Session 3
Changing times, challenging norms: How are changes in research practice re-shaping our thinking about what research integrity should be?
Chaired by Josh Brown and Danny Kingsley
Often the language around ‘research integrity’ is focused on the behaviour of the individual researcher. Yet issues with research reproducibility and replicability are systemic. By re-focusing on the integrity of the research itself, rather than relying on ‘a few good people’, many of the issues will, if not completely disappear, be considerably less likely to occur. New institutional approaches to fostering reproducibility and research integrity are being developed. National research integrity networks in countries like Switzerland and the United Kingdom have been launched, and have generated initiatives like the Centre for Academic Research Quality and Improvement at Bristol University. Meanwhile, challenges to existing assumptions about research integrity continue to emerge. These are technological, as in the development of innovations which rely on opaque machine learning models or cultural and political such as evaluation frameworks which encourage ‘gaming’ in ways which dis-incentivise good practices and transparency. These pose new challenges to the already-problematic notion of ‘universal norms’ for science and research in a world of proliferating technology and every wider-networks of communication and collaboration.
This session brings together research practitioners who are grappling with these emerging challenges, and members of new institutions created to respond to them. We will learn about their work, and about the tensions and uncertainties which are changing the way we approach reproducibility and research integrity. The session will centre on discussion and debate, in which we will explore questions like: How are changes in research practice re-shaping our thinking about what research integrity should be? Does a focus on individual careers cause us to lose sight of the fact that research is a common endeavour? Can a broad definition of ‘openness’ help us to understand the myriad ways that ‘research integrity’ is evolving across disciplines and cultural groups? This will be a lively, informative and interesting session!
