Research Integrity Promotion Work

The aim of the research was to delve into the meaningfulness of such work as promotion of research integrity. The following research questions were formulated:

1) What aspects of the role of research integrity promoter are meaningful? Why?

2) To what changes does research integrity promotion as meaningful work lead?

To answer these research questions, a qualitative research approach was employed using individual semi-structured interviews for data collection. The population of interest were national research integrity promoters: national ombudspersons for research integrity (coded as OMB), representatives for research integrity/misconduct from research funding organizations (RFO) and representatives from national research integrity networks (RIN) in European countries.

Purposive sampling method was used to select informants. To identify potential informants, we used website of European Network of Research Integrity Offices (http://www.enrio.eu/) and official websites of target organizations; in addition, snowball method was used to identify potential informants who corresponded to sampling criteria but were not part of the ENRIO membership. At the first stage, 32 potential informants were identified; due to missing contact information or irrelevance of activities as defined in sampling criteria, only 21 informants were invited to participate in the research. Overall, 10 national research integrity promoters (7 females and 3 males; all hold PhD degree and were or currently are part of academia) consented to take part in the research: 5 national ombudspersons for research integrity, 3 representatives for research integrity/misconduct from research funding organizations and 2 representatives from national research integrity networks.

Semi-structured questionnaire (interview guide) consisting of five key topics (self-identity, goals, impediments to meaning, enablers to meaning, rewards for meaning-making) and the closing section was used. Interviews were conducted remotely. The interview language was English.

Each interview was audio-recorded, transcribed, and anonymized. Average length of interview was 53 minutes; average non-anonymized interview transcript contained 6851 words.

Each transcript was validated by two researchers for data accuracy and clarification of inaudible responses; anonymization of each transcript was validated by two researchers and a respective informant. Due to uniqueness of the national status of informants, two informants asked to change their initial consent to disclose anonymized transcript (i.e., they agreed on the use of their interview transcripts for data analysis but not on granting open access to them).

The research is published as Tauginienė, L., Gaižauskaitė, I. (2022). Jumping with a Parachute – Is Promoting Research Integrity Meaningful? Accountability in Research: Policies and Quality Assurance. https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2044318