Research Integrity, Norms of Good Practices, and Misconduct across Scientific Fields: a Philosophical Perspective

This topical collection is devoted to investigations related to Research Integrity, Scientific Misconduct and Deviance, and Norms of Good Practices across Scientific Fields. Submissions that directly tackle these questions or relate them to already debated issues such as values in science, the ethics of science, responsible research and innovation, scientific methodology, or the reproducibility crisis in science are welcome.

This topical collection aims to stimulate research concerning research integrity and scientific deviance, provide a broader perspective and more unified perspective on the general analysis of scientific norms, and offer contributions that clarify, if not orientate, discussions about research policy and regulation of science.

We encourage analyses that are sensitive to the specificity of scientific fields.

All relevant methodologies are welcome, including conceptual analysis, empirical perspectives based on case studies, data, or meta-analysis, and formal investigations. In particular, contributions may come from traditions such as mainstream epistemology, philosophical analysis of scientific method, empirical, qualitative, and formal social epistemology of science, data-based investigations about misconduct, or discussions concerning reproducibility issues or methodological standards across science.

Finally, contributions relying on relevant material drawn from relevant disciplines and shedding light on the social, epistemic, cognitive, and institutional factors or dimensions behind research integrity and scientific misconduct are specifically welcome.

Appropriate Topics for Submission include, among others:

-Discussions on the causal analysis of scientific misconduct

-Analysis of the individual and collective factors that favor integrity violations

-Conceptual issues related to fraud, misconduct, and questionable research practices

-Classifications of scientific deviance and their suitability for causal claims

-Differences (if any) between the explanation of research integrity violations, questionable research practices, and scientific misconduct

-Norms and rules in science, their rationales, and their relations to research integrity

-Relations between discussions concerning research integrity, science ethics, responsible research and innovation, open science, and scientific methodology

-Biases in research and their relation to research integrity

-Values in Science and their relation to research integrity

-Issues related to the reproducibility/replicability crisis

-Discussions on sample size, statistical power, and related norms

-Methodological discussions about norms of good practices across particular fields

-Ways of decreasing research integrity violations

-Analysis of how to teach research integrity efficiently across scientific communities

-Research integrity within and outside science, e.g., with regards to science communication towards society

-Perspective differences about research integrity between scientific actors

-Differences in perspectives about research integrity between researchers/scientific institutions and other actors (e.g. policy makers, elected officials, private stakeholders)

-Explanations of research integrity violations and misconducts as reported by the media and the political world

-Trust in science and its relation to research integrity

-Political interferences in science and their relation to research integrity

-Similarities and differences between scientific fields on all the above issues

-Differences between private, public, citizen, and regulatory science on all the above issues

For further information, please contact the guest editors at the following email address: ahp-tc-synthese-integrity@univ-lorraine.fr