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The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) is planning to launch a research programme to conduct studies on scientific misconduct and integrity issues. The programme is being called an ‘invisible college’, with scientists from various disciplines at different institutions independently studying misconduct.

About 15 representatives of organizations such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Office of the Inspector General, the NIH, the Association of American Medical Colleges and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) attended the first planning meeting last month in Maryland.

Mary Scheetz, an information scientist at ORI's division of policy and education who helped organize the meeting, said there was strong support for scholarly studies on the topics. “There is a lack of solid research on scientific misconduct and research integrity,” says Scheetz. “In order for agencies to make effective policies, they need to make decisions on solid facts. The idea is to produce a research programme to produce that data.”

ORI is the lead agency addressing research misconduct occurring under NIH grants, but relies on institutions funded by the NIH to have policies and procedures to investigate allegations of fabrication, falsification or plagiarism.

When universities find misconduct, ORI conducts its own investigation and issues sanctions, including debarment from receiving federal funds. The NSF has similar procedures, but relies on its Office of the Inspector General to investigate.

Everyone at the meeting “agreed this is something that is important”, says Rachelle Hollander, director of the NSF's program on societal dimensions of engineering, science and technology.

The federal watchdogs involved in the planning effort are keen to move beyond the image of being ‘fraud police’. “We want to work with the extramural community and develop an agenda for research on misconduct,” says Chris Pascal, acting director of ORI.

“We have passed the point of anecdotal evidence,” added Scheetz. But she said the topics are “slippery” to study, because of the nature of the subject and the potential negative impacts for the careers of those involved. As one scientist noted: “We don't reward whistleblowers; we destroy them.”

Ruth L. Fischbach, senior adviser for biomedical ethics for the NIH's director of extramural research, said she is encouraged by the idea of research on misconduct. “This is an opportunity to look at the roots and learn to be proactive to try to prevent misconduct from occurring,” said Fischbach. “I have found there is a lot of secrecy within institutions about revealing the level of misconduct.”

ORI is already working with a private research institution to examine academic medical centre guidelines for research staff, including authorship, retention and recording of data, and intellectual property rights. This study may lead to a scientific conference on associated issues.

At its next meeting on the misconduct research programme in November, officials hope to commission research projects before a national conference in late 2000. The studies will be paid for initially with agency discretionary funds, officials say.