respond-to-a-research-integrity-concern

name	respond-to-a-research-integrity-concern
category	school
description	Respond to a research integrity concern with independent authority, protected reporting, evidence custody, fair allegation assessment, and verified correction. Use when fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, authorship abuse, interference, or retaliation may have occurred.

respond-to-a-research-integrity-concern

Protect people and evidence while keeping allegations separate from findings.

When to use

• Use for credible concerns about research records, methods, images, data, analysis, attribution, review, reporting, supervision, or retaliation.
• Use normal error correction only when facts show an unintentional, bounded mistake with no integrity, safety, reporting, or retaliation concern.

Preconditions

• Identify the current official institutional policy, sponsor and publication duties, legal constraints, reporting channels, and applicable definitions.
• Establish independent authority outside the control of implicated people, with conflict checks, protected reporting, and access to qualified methodological expertise.
• Limit case information to authorized participants and prepare support for reporters, respondents, witnesses, students, staff, and affected research participants.

Procedure

1. Record the concern, source, time, research outputs, alleged acts, immediate risks, retaliation signals, and actions already taken.
2. Start evidence preservation before alerting implicated custodians where destruction risk exists: hold data, code, images, notebooks, instruments, specimens, messages, access logs, submissions, reviews, approvals, and versions.
3. Use read-only copies, hashes, custody records, access restrictions, and documented collection methods.
4. After lawful preservation, remove unilateral administrative control from implicated custodians through authorized dual control, audited access, and a continuity plan for legitimate research.
5. Apply an initial safety and reporting screen for participant harm, public risk, clinical decisions, published claims, funding, patents, ongoing collection, and expiring evidence.
6. Perform allegation assessment by separating each claimed act, applicable standard, date, person, record, evidence source, and jurisdiction.
7. Decide inquiry or investigation thresholds through authorized policy, not reputation, seniority, publication pressure, or a desired outcome.
8. Give respondents fair notice and a meaningful opportunity to address evidence without exposing reporters unnecessarily or permitting record alteration.
9. Test complete relevant populations, provenance, methods, source data, image history, code, statistical outputs, authorship records, and alternative explanations.
10. Make findings against the stated standard and evidence weight; distinguish fact, inference, intent where required, impact, and unresolved uncertainty.
11. Maintain affected-person protection through anti-retaliation monitoring, supervision alternatives, access continuity, support, confidentiality boundaries, and correction of harmful records.
12. Coordinate authorized corrections, retractions, notices, participant protection, sponsor or regulator reports, and restoration of wrongly affected reputations.
13. Verify corrective actions, control changes, retention, monitoring, and appeal or review rights before closeout.

Failure plan

• If the normal authority is implicated, conflicted, or suppressing review, use independent institutional, sponsor, journal, regulator, ombuds, union, or protected legal channels as applicable.
• If evidence may be destroyed, prioritize lawful preservation and restricted access over informal confrontation.
• If public or participant harm may continue, use authorized interim protections without treating them as a finding.
• Never promise absolute confidentiality, conduct a public trial, coerce testimony, retaliate, or silently edit the research record.
• If the concern falls outside one institution, coordinate jurisdiction and custody rather than abandoning the uncovered portion.

Worked example

A junior researcher reports manipulated microscopy images, duplicated data, disputed authorship, and retaliation by a principal investigator who controls the lab's storage. Logs will expire before a sponsor deadline, and leadership suggests quietly replacing the figures. An independent office preserves servers, instruments, notebooks, submissions, and messages before notice. The case separates image, data, authorship, and retaliation allegations, tests full image provenance and source records, protects the reporter's supervision and access, gives the respondent a fair response, and routes corrections plus sponsor and journal decisions through authorized policy.

Done

• An integrity concern chronology records independent authority, intake, risks, evidence preservation, custody, interim protections, policy decisions, communications, and deadlines
• An evidence and allegation matrix links each allegation, standard, source record, analysis, response, finding, uncertainty, and affected output
• A findings and corrective action record verifies affected-person protection, corrections, notifications, remediation, anti-retaliation monitoring, review rights, and closeout