1Introduction
1.Research is fundamental to the process of pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge and understanding. Research helps cure diseases, tackle climate change, and understand the world around us. Research will help the UK to tackle the grand challenges of society—an ageing population, how to take care of the Earth’s ecosystem, and how to make the most of ‘big data’, to name just a few. The Prime Minister has recently described scientific research as “a noble pursuit and a public good”.1
2.Problems with the integrity of research—when research is anything less than “rigorous, accurate, honest and transparent”2—can arise from errors, poor research design, or even outright fraud. All of these problems have the potential to tarnish the reputation of research, and erroneous deductions and conclusions can have dramatic consequences, particularly in the context of medical research. Meanwhile, increasing sums of public money are being invested in research and development, and the Government has committed to increasing public and private spending on research and development to 2.4% of GDP by 2027, with total public investment reaching £12.5bn in 2021/22.3
3.In 2011 a previous Science and Technology Committee held an inquiry into ‘Peer review in scientific publications’, which explored research integrity in the context of the publishing process.4 The Committee concluded that the general oversight of research integrity in the UK was “unsatisfactory”, and recommended that an external regulator for research integrity should be established.5
4.This recommendation was not taken up by the Government.6 Instead, in 2012 Universities UK (UUK) coordinated the establishment of a ‘Concordat to Support Research Integrity’,7 to articulate “a set of common expectations and commitments in a comprehensive and coherent national policy framework” and provide “a clear stimulus for concerted action”.8 UUK reported in 2016 on progress in implementing the Concordat over the preceding four years.9
Our inquiry
5.In January 2017 our predecessor Committee launched a follow-up inquiry into research integrity, to coincide with the publication of a briefing on this topic from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST).10 The Committee called for written submissions on the issues identified in the POST briefing, including:
- The extent of the research integrity problem;
- Causes and drivers of recent trends;
- The effectiveness of controls/regulation (formal and informal), and what further measures if any are needed;
- What matters should be for the research/academic community to deal with, and which for Government.
That inquiry was ended prematurely by the dissolution of Parliament for the General Election in 2017. We decided to continue this inquiry in the new Parliament, drawing on the 82 submissions to our predecessors and a further 48 accepted and published by us.11 We held six oral evidence sessions, hearing from 27 witnesses. We are grateful for all these contributions to our work.
6.We did not seek to investigate specific allegations of research misconduct or to re-open old cases. We and our predecessor Committee rejected several written submissions on that basis. However, a small number of cases are referred to in our report where they illustrate current issues relating to research integrity.
The Science Minister’s reluctance to give oral evidence
7.We invited a Government Minister to provide oral evidence to our inquiry, and initially arranged to take evidence from Jo Johnson MP, the then Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, on 6 February 2018. Following the Government reshuffle in January, we agreed with the new Minister’s office (Sam Gyimah MP) to defer this session until 6 March, to accommodate the new Minister’s existing diary commitments. At the new Minister’s request, we agreed that Sir Mark Walport (Chief Executive, UK Research and Innovation) should accompany him that day. A few days before the session, the Minister told us that he would not now be attending, since it would be “a better use of Committee Members’ time” to direct our questions to Sir Mark instead.12 His letter could have been interpreted to suggest that he did not see a role for the Government in this area, since “the terms and conditions applied to researchers [are] the responsibility of the funders, employers and researchers themselves and I do not believe that this is best furthered by direct intervention from Government”.13 After our session with Sir Mark, the Minister gave evidence for our separate inquiry into Brexit, science and innovation, and we took this opportunity to ask him to reflect on his decision not to attend to discuss research integrity. He claimed that his non-attendance was merely “a suggestion, not a refusal”,14 and subsequently he gave evidence to our inquiry two months later, on 8 May.
8.The Science Minister’s initial reluctance to give evidence to our inquiry was disappointing, not least as it risked sending the message that the Government does not take this issue seriously. Nevertheless, we welcome the fact that that the Minister was subsequently willing to appear and are grateful for his responses to our questions.
9.The Government rightly invests considerable sums of public money in research, and investment in research and development as a proportion of GDP is set to grow further in the coming years. The Government needs to be confident that all possible steps are being taken to ensure that this money is not wasted through problems with research integrity, and that the research that it buys is as reliable as possible. While the Government should not seek to interfere directly in research matters or compromise the independence of universities, it should nevertheless maintain an active interest in supporting research integrity and ensuring that all elements of self-regulation are functioning well in order to get the best value possible from public investment.
1 “PM speech on science and modern Industrial Strategy: 21 May 2018”, gov.uk (accessed 22 May 2018)
3 “Record boost to R&D and new transport fund to help build economy fit for the future”, Gov.uk, 20 November 2017
4 Science and Technology Committee, Eighth Report of Session 2010–12, Peer review in scientific publications, HC 856
5 Science and Technology Committee, Eighth Report of Session 2010–12, Peer review in scientific publications, HC 856, paras 262 & 271
6 Science and Technology Committee, Tenth Special Report of Session 2010–12, Peer review in scientific publications: Government and Research Councils UK responses to the Committee’s Eighth Report of Session 2010–12, HC 1535
7 Universities UK, The Concordat to Support Research Integrity (July 2012)
9 Universities UK, The Concordat to Support Research Integrity: A Progress Report (November 2016)
10 Integrity in Research, POSTnote 544, Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, January 2017
11 Written submissions to our predecessor’s inquiry (i.e. those received before the General Election) are labelled with ‘RIN’ numbers; submissions received in the current Parliament are labelled with the ‘RES’ prefix.
12 Letter from Sam Gyimah MP to Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP, February 2018
13 Letter from Sam Gyimah MP to Rt Hon Norman Lamb MP, February 2018
14 Oral evidence taken on 6 March 2018, HC 705, Q1
Published: 11 July 2018