INSTITUTIONS ADDRESS RESEARCH INTEGRITY

Research in every aspect is a very critical activity for human kind as it creates knowledge that benefits the society. It represents major commitment by different parties involved, whether in the public or private sector. Commitment to upholding research integrity, which has been defined as adherence to ethical principles and professional standards essential for the responsible practice of research, is very fundamental in realizing the immense benefits of research. Research findings constitute the basis for major decisions, and consequently it is only prudent that research process is conducted with integrity, in such a responsible manner and in accordance with high ethical standards.

Researchers the world over are expected to maintain the highest standards of research integrity in responsible conduct of their research. Researchers and research institutions have the primary responsibility to enhance research integrity, while research funding agencies are equally critical in contributing to the creation of a scientific environment to conduct responsible research for prosperity. Responsible conduct of research as espoused in principles of research integrity is instrumental in instilling confidence to the research community and the public at large.

With the witnessed rapid growth of research and expansion of education capacity globally, the issues of research integrity are increasingly becoming even more important than before. These unprecedented opportunities for researchers and institutions to collaborate at all levels to expand scientific knowledge for solving the ever increasing societal challenges calls for more commitment to research integrity principles to enhance trustworthiness of the research processes by the scientific community. Efforts to develop principles and ethical guidelines to promote research integrity have been ongoing from different fronts.

Promotion of collaborative research nationally and across continents to benefit scientific community will flourish when researchers and institutions function within a sustained environment that nurture confidence and trust in research findings and support  free and open exchange of research results and ideas. Research integrity tenets therefore call for upholding both personal and corporate accountability and acknowledgement and respects intellectual contributions of others in the community. While all researchers are expected to be fully committed to set out ethical principles and professional standards, researchers involving human subjects in their research remains with a greater challenge. Studying people, their tissues and their data raises more ethical complexities not seen with basic research, including responsibility for the safety and privacy of study participants. Similarly, research institution should be committed to research integrity through creating an environment that promotes responsible conduct by enacting  standards of excellence, accountability, trustworthiness, lawfulness and professionalism.

Research integrity for individual researcher is more of an aspect of moral character and experience. It is expected this will call for a commitment to intellectual honesty and personal responsibility for individual’s actions and good practices set for responsible research conduct such as:- honesty and fairness in reporting; accuracy; fairness; non-disclosure of conflicts of interest; adherence to set guidelines; protection of human subjects and humane care of animals among others.

Proper conduct of research for researchers and institutions involved in research enterprise to execute the right things as proposed in research protocol should be the guiding principle. Research must be inclined to perform carefully designed research experiments while taking into consideration the ethical issues, accurate data capture and reporting results in time in order to advance knowledge. While this is the desired aim, cases of misconduct in research continue to pose a challenge to research integrity. Particularly research misconduct involving lack of financial integrity in use of research funds, fabrication data, falsification of research findings, plagiarism which is the use of intellectual property without proper acknowledgment.

The Global Research Council (GRC) an organization comprised of the heads of science and engineering funding agencies from around the world advocates for the basic principles of research integrity namely honesty, responsibility, fairness and accountability as very essential to be adhered to within the framework of responsible conduct of research.  I gave presentation during GRC second Annual meeting held in Berlin last week on issues research integrity, from Kenyan perspective. The meeting endorsed research integrity principles committing researchers and research institutions to remain ultimately responsible for undertaking research with integrity and also oblige research funding agencies to ensure that supported research abides to the possible highest standards. In driving the process, the research funding agencies are expected to champion a number of principles to ensure integrity in research which includes:- leadership in the responsible management of research programs, encouraging institutions to develop and implement policies and systems to promote integrity in all aspects of the research enterprise, promote continual training in research integrity, and develop initiatives to educate all researchers and students on the importance of research integrity. They are also expected to publish policies and procedures to promote research integrity and to address allegations of research misconduct, support a process that values accountability, timeliness and fairness during any investigation of misconduct, incorporate integrity in research as a condition for obtaining and maintaining funding by researchers and institutions work cooperatively with partners to support and facilitate research integrity worldwide.

There is every need to continuously raise the public attention to research integrity issues, highlighting weaknesses in institutional research policies and regulatory frameworks. In Kenya, several cases have been highlighted in this regard, these include; conduct of research without ethical approval, Misappropriation of research funds, plagiarism and bio-prospecting.

To address these issues the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) has come up with several strategies; to safeguard the conduct of research particularly those involving human subject ethical approvals, NCST as funding agency and regulatory body created a National Bioethics Committee(NBC) to promote and monitor ethical practices in Kenya. The role of the NBC is to provide advice to institutional ethics committees, policy formulation and dispute resolution. As the numbers of research applications increases due to the growth of national research and innovation system,  other  institutional ethics committees have been accredited to act on behalf of  NCST in  ensuring that all applications are appropriately reviewed and proper ethical consideration given to each.

In efforts to ensure prudent use of research funds NCST has instituted strict monitoring and evaluation regime. This covers all funded research projects to guard misappropriation of funds through authorized changes in approved research protocols and procurement of unbudgeted items. Regular participatory monitoring and evaluation exercises are carried out to ensure timeliness in project implementation and enhance accountability.  It is now a mandatory requirement to incorporate projects log frames with clear measurable indicators and milestones to be covered in research proposals submitted for funding.

The issue of plagiarism was also evident in proposals submitted to NCST for funding in the last phase. The anti-plagiarism software is already in place and this will address plagiarism cases in future applications. However, Educational institutions must be keen on addressing issues of plagiarism and put in place proper mentorship programs. There has been a case of reported bio-resources taken outside the country without clear material transfer agreements. This calls for strict adherence to ethical research practices while enforcing adoption of access and benefit sharing tenets and increasing awareness of Intellectual property regimes.   

Some of deliberate approaches to nurture research integrity in Kenya could include sustained promotion of institutional and individual capacity building to instill a culture of responsible conduct of research in upcoming researchers and institutions. Formulating deterrent and corrective policies to minimize issues of research misconduct could be useful. We must encourage the culture of being innovative and creative without copying and pasting.