The Finnish Research Integrity Barometer 2023 indicates that competition for resources is a cause of concern for the research community.
Research Integrity in the Time of COVID-19: Finnish Research Integrity Barometer 2023 highlights the research community's strong commitment to research integrity in Finland. The survey was carried out by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK. The report in Finnish was published in May 2024, and the English translation of the report as well as a summary in Swedish are now available.
The survey indicates that career pressures, competition for funding and indifferent attitudes pose a threat to good research practices and research integrity. Research ethical problems are manifested particularly in suspicions and concerns surrounding authorship, data management and suspected research misconduct, particularly plagiarism.
Most suspicions of research integrity violations are not reported and hence not investigated. However, TENK's statistics show that reported cases often turn out to be issues such as workplace problems, and actual research misconduct is not detected often. The number of suspected research integrity violations reported by the respondents is nevertheless worryingly high.
The good news are that research integrity skills are at a good level in Finland and the research community takes the responsible conduct of research seriously. Guidelines are well known, respondents know what they should do in problematic situations, and suspicions of research integrity violations have decreased since the 2018 barometer.
The survey also examined the impact of COVID-19, which was found to be minimal.
Research organisations play a crucial role in disseminating knowledge as well as fostering and maintaining good research practices. Proactive prevention through training and fostering good research culture is considered the best approach to addressing challenges.
Read more:
You might also be interested in
