Call for participants!

“Ripped off in Academia: Costs and Consequences of Unethical Practices in Research”

Background

In informal settings, academics of all career stages talk about being ripped off in higher education: they experience or witness unethical practices in research.

Unethical practices described include but are not limited to:

…academics stealing others’ ideas
…academics listed as authors where contributions may be questionable
…academics not being named in publications when they should be, and
…academics being forced to add others as investigators for contractual reasons.

Such unethical practices have consequences:

On an individual level, researchers become more protective of their work and are less likely to collaborate with others, which results in the long-term societal cost of disengaged researchers, early careers researchers specifically having to navigate the research world without support, and, more importantly, of particular kinds of research not happening at all. The research that is most likely to be harmed in this vicious cycle is any research into and with marginalised communities.

Although there is increased interest in developing “good” research culture in higher education, there has not been any research into the costs and consequences of unethical practices in research.

This research seeks to redress that gap.

 

Research questions

The overarching question is:
What are the costs and consequences of unethical practices in research in higher education?

The sub-questions are:
1.How do researchers define unethical practices in higher education?
2.What are researchers’ lived experiences of unethical practices in research as someone who was at the receiving end of such practices or as someone who may have witnessed them?
3.What are researchers’ personal costs of unethical practices?
4.How do researchers respond to lived or witnessed experiences of unethical practices in their subsequent research?
5.Which measures and strategies can be implemented to prevent the perpetuation of unethical practices and to improve research culture?

 

Call for participants!

If you would like to contribute to this research (interview of 45 to 60 minutes), please, use the QR code to download the information sheet and consent form and/or get in touch via email:

Nicole Brown at nicole.brown@ucl.ac.uk