Journals should be clear on misconduct

摘要

The next World Conference on Research Integrity in Montreal, Canada, on 5-8 May will make collaborators more responsible for the integrity of their research. I believe that more pressure should also be brought to bear on scientific journals, which should publicly declare and reinforce their policies on fraudulent reporting of research results. Journals were urged in 2010 to improve procedures for tackling allegations of misconduct and irresponsible research practices But progress has been unsatisfactory: some 40% of high-impact biomedical journals, for example, do not have authorship policies, let alone policies to define, prevent and punish misconduct (X. Bosch etal. PLoS ONE 7, e51928; 2012).