Integrity helps translate research into trustworthy innovation

Bold expansion of a global research integrity framework to encompass industry and policy-makers – and all other parts of the research ecosystem – has been proposed following extensive consultations as well as discussions at the 8th World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI) held in Athens last week.

Another focus of this growing biennial gathering was on the pivotal role research integrity can play in the translation of research into trustworthy technological and social innovations.

“This year’s conference in Athens really showed to me that research integrity applies to all research no matter who or where it is conducted and administered,” said Dr Daniel Barr, principal research integrity advisor at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, and a member of the governing board of the World Conferences on Research Integrity Foundation.

“Research integrity is crucial in ensuring honesty, rigour and fairness in research, and in the context of very human things in research such as incentives and bias,” he told University World News.

“‘Blue sky’ basic research by disinterested and sceptical academics is fundamentally important. However, for the many researchers wanting to make a positive impact through their work, research integrity has a role to play in ensuring trust in research translation beyond publication,” he said.

Generative artificial intelligence has been a major global development since the 2022 WCRI in South Africa, and its impact on research and integrity was also a hot topic.

“Generative AI is relevant across all academic disciplines and has changed the ways research can be conducted,” Barr commented. “The principles of research integrity appear able to withstand this disruption and provide the basis for responsible conduct with generative AI.

“The new capabilities of generative AI heighten research integrity risks as well as present opportunities for enhancing responsible research,” he noted.

8th WCRI 2024

The biennial WCRIs are a major event on the global research integrity calendar. This year’s gathering was held in the Greek capital from 2 to 5 June and drew 800 participants from around the world – the most well-attended WCRI so far.

Most WCRIs have generated a statement that is considered influential in the world of research integrity. The ‘Athens Statement’ that will flow from this conference will be finalised at the beginning of 2025, drawing on wide consultations with experts, discussions at the conference, and a consultative report titled “A study on how research integrity can facilitate the translation of research into trustworthy policy and innovation”.

Barr is one of the authors of the consultative report, essentially a preliminary draft of the Athens Statement, along with research integrity experts Dr Panagiotis Kavouras and Dr Eleni Spyrakou, who are senior researchers at the National Technical University of Athens in Greece, and Maura Hiney, an adjunct professor at University College Dublin Institute for Discovery in Ireland.

Barr told University World News that “better than expected engagement” by WCRI participants with the Athens Statement development was likely due to appreciation of the WCRI’s “intent to consult and listen – some of them told me as much”.

“We have some extra work to do to hear from others who were not at the conference but who are crucial for integrity in research translation – experts in the processes as well as representatives from business,” he said.

Developing the preliminary Athens Statement used a mixed-methods approach, with stress on engaging a diverse group of stakeholders.

The first step in developing the preliminary Athens Statement was a literature review which, says the document, “yielded scant results”.

Evidence was then collected through interviews with 10 experts with knowledge of research integrity, from the fields of research translation, technology assessment, responsible research and innovation, research ethics, philosophy of science, and history of science and technology.

The preliminary document investigates whether the research integrity framework, open science practices, and reproducibility initiatives positively influence translation and policy-making, and how such influence may be enhanced.

The 6th WCRI, which took place in Hong Kong in 2019, concluded that in addition to the four research integrity principles that remain relevant at all stages of the research process and for all actors – namely honesty in all aspects of research; accountability in the conduct of research; professional courtesy and fairness in working with others; and good stewardship of research on behalf of others – two additional principles should be added.

These additional principles are: transparency in the research process and in the presentation of results; and clarity of communication to ensure that information communicated about innovation is understandable, explainable and accessible.

Statement co-author Panagiotis Kavouras told University World News: "The interactions that took place in the context of the Athens Statement brought forward the need for deep engagement very upstream to translational pathways."

It deepened thinking on how the current research integrity framework can become more relevant to translation and policy-making and can include the perspectives of industry, small and medium enterprises and policy-makers.

The big ideas

The need to expand research integrity to processes related to research supply chains outside the academy, which have not previously been considered relevant to research integrity or to the conduct of research at large, was one of five main suggestions made by the 10 experts.

They agreed that research integrity is relevant to all researchers, regardless of whether they conduct basic research, applied research or translation, and whether they are doing research in academic or industrial settings, or providing advice for policy-makers, the document says.

Kavouras said that this was one of the biggest ideas tackled by the WCRI.

“We should think carefully on how to reduce the differences in incentive structures between researchers in academic and non-academic settings, noting that while all research has the potential for impact, basic research is different from translation.”

It is very important to keep a gap between basic and translational research, Daniel Barr stresses, noting that “all research has the potential for impact”.

Further, said Kavouras: “Research integrity practices by industry partners may help academics in universities. Rigour and accountability in the management of research data is one area as well as the potential use of quality systems by institutions.

“Responsible management of conflicts of interest in research translation might be a ‘grand challenge’ for research integrity.”

The other gap, between research and its translation, looks different across countries. For example: “Since translation is embedded in the general academic culture and reward system, the United States research community is better equipped than its European counterpart to consider the commercial implications of discoveries,” the statement reads.

A second suggestion by the study experts was that dialogue between academia and industry should be initiated as early as possible in the research cycle, “but without compromising basic research and academic freedom”. Third, the adoption of quality systems by universities could help to cultivate trust between academia and industry.

Fourth, in addition to the principles of clarity and transparency brought forward at the 6th WCRI, “there is a need to integrate more prominently the additional principle of engagement that is facilitated by open science”.

Finally, less dissimilar incentive structures for academic and industry researchers need to be developed. The experts believed the evaluation system in universities unconducive to commercialisation or translation activities,” the statement reads.

“Academic researchers are assessed by their volume of publications in top-level journals, the number of students graduating, and research income from competitive proposals for funding.

“It takes time for a researcher to engage with industry or policy stakeholders, understand and fine tune their needs, and try to align their university research with those needs. This is not compatible with current evaluation systems, since there is evidence that academics starting in the commercialisation track usually experience a drop in their publication,” the statement reads.

The experts considered that separating academic and industry researchers implied a dichotomy between them. They do have different goals: academic researchers need to publish in peer-reviewed journals, while industrial researchers need to get a product into the market.

“Some interviewees felt that lack of trust could undermine the hard work being done by people in academia and industry to create a community of practice, where they can share their needs and converge on the same sets of research questions,” the statement reads.

“This community of practice is being constructed in various ways, for example secondment of industrial researchers in universities and vice versa, collaborative projects between universities and industry, and universities accepting corporate affiliates. Some interviewees considered that to some extent they may trust each other too much, so some tough questions must be asked about the comfortable ties between universities and industry,” the statement reads.

Crafting a research integrity framework

The preliminary Athens Statement has more than two dozen proposed recommendations clustered around openness, transparency, clarity and engagement; characteristics of research quality; research integrity framework; and communication of research and innovation.

They range, for example, from the preregistration of research, publishing the original data and managing biases to the needs for new types of metrics to understand the true impact of research and for researchers to put more emphasis on methods than results in publications.

According to the document, the interviews showed that facilitating translation of research into trustworthy technological and social innovation through an augmented research integrity framework requires three delicate ‘balancing’ and two ‘expansion’ activities.

The ‘balancing’ activities have to do with:

(a) developing and applying a less dissimilar incentive structure across the communities of academic-based and industry-based researchers, while recognising that their aims differ;
(b) developing and implementing a more coherent quality system in research performing organisations and industry, while acknowledging that basic research is, in some aspects, fundamentally different from translation; and
(c) building communication channels between research performing organisations and industry, very upstream on the translation pathways, without compromising academic freedom.

The two ‘expansion’ activities have to do with the fact that:

(a) “translation brings forward the need for being more inclusive in what we perceive as activities relevant to research integrity. There is a need to expand the focus of research integrity to activities that span across the supply chains, from the working conditions where raw materials are extracted up to the distribution of an end-product to consumers; and

(b) for influencing policy-making with evidence-based results we do not have to focus only on reaching out to policy-makers. There is a need to expand the target audience by involving policy advisors, lobbyists, think-tanks and journalists, since they can have a significant influence on the decisions of policy-makers.”

Daniel Barr said it was not yet clear what the Athens Statement will look like, once the consultations and debates and writing are over, and are broadly communicated around the worlds of academia and innovation.

“The Athens Statement might be used to improve existing processes for research translation or create new tools for researchers in academic settings. It might also clarify research integrity responsibilities of the actors involved in research translation, such as those who facilitate translation at universities and those outside the academic context such as industry partners.

“Engaging with these other actors in research translation settings might be a key challenge for the Athens Statement,” Barr added. “Perhaps we’ll be able to use generative AI tools to work this out – responsibly, of course.”

Email Karen MacGregor at macgregor.karen@gmail.com or karen@universityworldnews.com.