Research integrity in biomedical research – RestoRes

Patients, medical doctors, public health decision makers, governments creating policies: our society depends on evidence from scientific research that is expected to be trustworthy. In this process, scientific integrity is paramount. However, the COVID-19 pandemic stressed that scientific misbehaviour affects biomedical research and represents a major threat to public health. Numerous examples had dramatic consequence in terms of medical decision making and had largely decreased credibility in the robustness of scientific findings: i) fraudulent trials about ivermectin or lack of transparency and suspicion of data fabrication in Sputnik vaccine trial; ii) conflict of interest (COIs) between authors and editors (e.g. the hydroxychloroquine saga); iii) lack of transparency and financial COIs about research on remdesivir. However, if those examples became salient in the context of a pandemic, many other cases have been described previously suggesting that these problems are endemic, systemic and not only contextual.
The objectives of RestoRe are i) to describe problems of scientific integrity in biomedical research within those 3 relevant domains: fraudulent studies, conflict of interests between authors and editors and financial conflict of interests, ii) to explore underlying scientific practices to better understand researchers’ behaviours), and iii) to elaborate on any legal and ethical implications.
RestoRe is a collaborative project that brings together researchers in medical sciences (Florian Naudet, Clara Locher, Silvy Laporte) with a particular expertise in ethics (Marie-France Mamzer) and academics interested in the science of science (Nicolas Carayol, economist). The approach will use both quantitative and qualitative methods. The consortium’s specific commitment to Open Science will help maximise the diffusion and impact of the program. RestoRe will be conducted in relation with an international network of meta-researchers from Stanford, Ottawa and Oxford.