Review of annual statements on research integrity

The UK Committee on Research Integrity is dedicated to promoting integrity in research across all disciplines and to supporting good governance of research practice. Through partnership with diverse organisations, including higher education institutions, research institutes, and public, private and third sector agencies, the Committee works to promote and strengthen research integrity throughout the UK, and in the UK’s international research partnerships.

The Committee produces an annual statement on the state of research integrity in the UK. To inform this, and building on previous work in this area, the Committee and the Research Integrity Concordat Signatories Group commissioned the present report. Here, Research Consulting present a body of evidence focusing on research integrity in UK higher education institutions and discuss their key findings from an assessment of over 280 annual statements.

The statements underpinning this report have been published by institutions in response to the expectations of the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, most recently updated in 2019. While annual research integrity statements were not originally intended for collective analysis, they serve as a valuable source of information on institutional efforts over time. The findings of this work will inform the Committee's ongoing efforts to promote research integrity and good practice in the UK higher education system, as well as the upcoming review of the Concordat by the Research Integrity Concordat Signatories Group.

This report is supplemented by two annexes:

• Annex A - Analysis framework 
• Annex B - Full dataset