Peer review has long been regarded as the gold standard of scientific publication, essential to the integrity of science itself. But, as any publishing scientist knows, peer review has its downside, including long delays and reviewer bias. Until the coming of the Internet, there appeared to be no alternative. Now, articles appear online as…

Scientific research is supposed to acquire or generate knowledge, but such a purpose would be severely undermined by instances of research misconduct (RM) and questionable research practices (QRP). RM and QRP are often framed in terms of moral transgressions by individuals (bad apples) whose aberrant acts could be made conducive by shortcomings in…

In the last decade, there has been increased recognition of the importance of disclosing and managing non-financial conflicts of interests to safeguard the objectivity, integrity, and trustworthiness of scientific research. While funding agencies and academic institutions have had policies for addressing non-financial interests in grant peer…

Citation is an essential practice in scientific publishing. However, it is mandatory that citing the sources in a scientific work is performed in a proper manner. Manipulating citations in research articles is one form of academic research misconduct that violates publication ethics. Citation manipulation simply occurs for the purpose of…

The Joint Research Centre (JRC) is the European Commission's in-house science and knowledge service, employing a substantial staff of scientists devoted to conducting research to provide independent scientific advice for EU policy. Focussed on various research areas aligned with EU priorities, the JRC excels in delivering scientific evidence for…

Citizen science (CS) has been presented as a novel form of research relevant for social concerns and global challenges. CS transforms the roles of participants to being actively involved at various stages of research processes, CS projects are dynamic, and pluralism arises when many non-professional researchers take an active involvement in…

Recital 33 GDPR has often been interpreted as referring to 'broad consent'. This version of informed consent was intended to allow data subjects to provide their consent for certain areas of research, or parts of research projects, conditional to the research being in line with 'recognised ethical standards'. In this article, we argue that broad…

The COVID-19 pathogen led to a fast expanding pandemic because it proved lethal in certain populations but could be transmitted by persons who appeared healthy. As a result, researchers came under unprecedented time pressure to develop a vaccine. This case study focuses on the first COVID-19 vaccine, which was approved for use in humans, known as…

Conducting marine mammal research can raise several important ethical issues. For example, the continuation of whaling for commercial purposes despite the international moratorium provides opportunities for scientists to obtain data and tissue samples. In 2021 we analysed 35 peer-reviewed papers reporting research based on collaborations with…

The inclusion of animals in research studies involves a great responsibility to ensure animal welfare within the relevant ethical and legal frameworks. This study aimed to review compliance with the ARRIVE Essential 10 requirements and the ethical oversight of animal behaviour and welfare studies in farm animals. Three journals and a total of 133…

Research ethics committees (RECs) have a crucial role in protecting children in research. However, studies on REC members' perspectives on paediatric research are scarce. We conducted a qualitative study to explore Swedish scientific REC members' perspectives on ethical aspects in applications involving children with severe health conditions. The…

Arab researchers encounter formidable obstacles when conducting and publishing their scientific work. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 Arab researchers from various Arab Middle East countries to gain a comprehensive understanding of the difficulties they face in research and publication. We analyzed the transcripts using reflexive…

The paper reports two studies exploring the relationship between scholars' self-reported publication pressure and their self-reported scientific misconduct in research. In Study 1 the participants (N = 423) were scholars representing various disciplines from one big university in Poland. In Study 2 the participants (N = 31) were exclusively…