Research ethics

Nepotism and the isolation of war have left Kosovo’s oldest university battling poor research standards, but transparency campaigners hope this is changing

Call follows revelations about Coca-Cola’s influence over some sponsored research

Peter Ridd’s victory in unfair dismissal case raises questions about limits of scientific consensus

Aftershocks continue amid new revelations of fabrication

Marine biologist Oona Lönnstedt has gone to ground in Sweden after being found to have fabricated data

When credible concerns emerge about research validity, universities and journals must move quickly, writes John Ross

Philosopher calls on universities to take AI debate ‘out of the hands of the industry’ and end ‘ethics washing’

Retractions in Nature and Science follow Abderrahmane Kaidi’s resignation from Bristol

Montenegro becomes one of the first countries to outlaw not only plagiarism, but also donation of authorship and fabrication of research results

University said to have known of problems with lab technician’s faked data for several years

Martin Heidingsfelder, who has helped bring down several political high-fliers, still thinks there are plagiarists at the very top of German politics

Marketisation, precarity and global competition have combined to create a vast market for academic ghostwriting, says an anonymous scholar

This growing but still unacknowledged phenomenon in higher education is badly in need of ethical oversight, says an anonymous academic

Diana Mitlin, professor of global urbanism at the University of Manchester, shares her tips on working with politicians and government officials

After years of asking, National Academy of Sciences makes integrity push across university silos

Simon Baker examines the rise of China as a research nation and the worries this provokes among some Westerners

Australian researchers say a lack of guidance material forces researchers to second-guess ethics committees

New £5.7 million institute at the Technical University of Munich triggers ‘ethics washing’ debate

Tributes paid to leading research integrity expert

Portland State University’s investigation of a researcher who published hoax papers misses the point of ethical oversight, says Jeffrey Flier

Despite widespread recognition of prevalence of errors in psychological research, academics remain reluctant to own up to their errors

New European rule on protecting data from human research subjects being found so complicated as to slow medical science

Scientists must act in wake of He Jiankui case, say US and Chinese leaders, to avoid ‘rash or hasty political reaction’

Increased statistical evaluation will pinpoint the educational ‘treatments’ that work, says Yidan prizewinner

Long-running investigation into David Latchman’s UCL laboratory finds evidence of deliberate research misconduct, but concludes he was unaware of it

Societies must ‘regain control’ over gene editing technology, says expert

Sponsors that do not meet rules should have ethical approval for future experiments withheld, says Science and Technology Committee

Strathclyde education lecturer calls for other academics to speak out

Legal experts say EU’s data protection laws could ‘hamper research progress’ between two regions

German academics have uncovered thousands of suspected abusers in a landmark project. But should they have had a freer hand?

Thirty-two academic institutions have so far failed to report any of their trial data in accordance with new European Union rules

A move to combat India’s love affair with predatory journals is an encouraging sign – even if it took a newspaper exposé to prompt it, says Pushkar

Since 2011, dozens of institutions have sworn not to undertake military-related research, but the country is now calling on academics to strengthen its defences

Controversial companies are pouring millions into academic research – including on how the industry should be regulated

Findings suggest markets could be used to help prioritise which experiments need repeating most urgently 

Scientists wouldn’t cause unnecessary suffering to humans or animals, so why are they so careless with numbers, asks biostatistician

Immersive ethnographic research often produces gripping accounts of life on the edge, but verifying such work can be problematic. Matthew Reisz examines how ethnographers can produce work that is both credible and robust

Cutting partner labs out of awarded grant budgets is a common but destructive phenomenon in modern academia, says Anne Carpenter

Experts are out of fashion with today’s political vanguard, but fraudulent research risks further undermining science, says THE’s Asia-Pacific editor John Ross

Study suggests reproducibility crisis may not be limited to psychology and biomedicine

Investigation discovers 400,000 researchers worldwide have used ‘pseudoscientific’ journals

Investigation into Irina Stancheva confirms five cases of misconduct, but former lecturer denies manipulating data

The entanglement of the university and tech worlds faces increased scrutiny following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Could joint positions in industry and academia offer a workable and ethically defensible way forward? David Matthews reports

Academic questions whether new committee should be hosted by UK Research and Innovation

Information Commissioner’s Office expresses concern about academics using data gathered for research purposes for commercial gain

Commons Science and Technology Committee expresses concerns that use of non-disclosure agreements could allow errant scholars to reoffend elsewhere

Campaigners fear a huge increase in EU military research spending will lead to development of autonomous weapons

Academics establish deal with social network that will allow ‘insider’ scholars to filter data given to researchers

NAS calls for US lawmakers to bring change also brings warning that crisis talk may ultimately ‘stifle frontier discoveries’

Emma Briant defends actions over exchanges with key figures from Leave.EU and Cambridge Analytica parent

Despite errors exaggerating results by factor of 10, Adam Perkins says findings remain ‘statistically significant’

The Cambridge Analytica controversy flags up the ethical perils of research with Big Data – especially when it has commercial potential, says John Holmwood 

Robotics experts cancel boycott after KAIST denies developing autonomous weapons

‘If we want to do more things for society, we can’t do it by working more than 60 or 70 hours a week,’ Rolf Tarrach tells annual conference

Leading academics fear research at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology could be used to develop autonomous armaments

Scientists reject the ‘crisis narrative’ as an inflammatory distraction from bigger issues

University has distanced itself from controversial researcher, but critic argues that it has failed to live up to own ethics code

An expanding research misconduct investigation has stretched its net from the chilly Baltic to an idyllic Queensland island and the grasslands of Saskatchewan

Social scientists’ scepticism about research oversight also relates to the curiously bad press it gets in Western literature, writes Katarzyna Kaczmarska 

Ethics modules ordered after warnings from students’ union that misconduct is on the rise