Perspectives from the academic trio: A deep dive into research integrity issues and challenges faced by authors, editors, and reviewers

Peer Review Week 2022 (Sep 19-23), powered by Editage and Researcher.Life, was bigger than ever with exciting discussions with KOLs in academia and the scholarly publishing community. This year’s Peer Review Week theme, Research Integrity: Creating and Supporting Trust in Research, was chosen from a global open poll. The popularity of the issue underscores the need for the scholarly community to address it in depth. CACTUS has been involved with Peer Review Week since the beginning. However, Peer Review Week 2022 was more special as CACTUS co-chaired the event, shedding light on the crucial role of peer review in upholding research integrity.
The 7th edition of Peer Review Week started off with an exciting panel discussion with a former researcher and independent research integrity specialist, Dr. Elisabeth Bik, Michael Streeter, Director of Research Integrity and Publication Ethics at Wiley, and Christopher Leonard, Director of Strategy and Innovation at CACTUS. With a deep dive into the research integrity issues encountered by authors, editors, and reviewers, the panelists discussed how recent technologies play a role in unethical practices. With her vast experience of reviewing scientific images, Dr. Elisabeth Bik shared her insights about reviewers’ mindsets and objectives when assessing research manuscripts. Michael Streeter emphasized the need for more collaboration among key stakeholders in academia like researchers, universities, and publishers. Sharing resources and experiences can help create more awareness about growing instances of malpractice.
Can open review be a viable solution to ensure better accountability? Do publishers need better screening methods and workflows to prevent research malpractice? Watch the video to find out as these experts discuss these questions and share their views on preventing practices like image manipulation and plagiarism that compromise research integrity.
You may watch the video here.