The role of (co)supervisor
The role of (co)supervisor from a research integrity perspective
The (co)supervisor complies oneself with the generally accepted standards of research integrity. The (co)supervisor should thereby act as a responsible role model in order to ensure that the PhD researcher picks up good habits. The (co)supervisor creates a climate in which these standards drive the conduct of the PhD researcher and in which fair and honest scientific conduct is the norm.
5 tips for supervisors to promote research integrity
According to ORI (Office of Research Integrity, USA) there are 5 ways you can promote research integrity towards your PhD researchers and other (new) colleagues.
1. Be available and approachable
Take the time to cultivate a relationship with your trainees. They are there to learn from you, so discuss progress and problems in an open and constructive manner. This can encourage conversation, promote transparency, and make them more comfortable coming to you with questions and concerns.
Create a safe and secure environment that builds on trust and facilitates an open dialogue. Researchers may come across new situations, in which they inadvertently end up facing integrity challenges.
2. Review raw data
You are responsible for the data used or produced by any member of your research group. Regularly reviewing raw data, especially data relating to any paper/grant/poster, can help catch both honest errors and intentional manipulations before the data and the paper are made public.
In 45 cases of research misconduct committed by trainees, 72% of supervisors had not reviewed the source data (Wright, Titus & Cornelison, 2008).
3. Communicate your expectations
Be clear about individual roles and responsibilities regarding data management, experiments, authorship, and timelines of projects, as well as how trainees will be evaluated. Consider providing a (formal) onboarding or introduction for junior researchers and inform them about the (written) standards of the research group. Be clear about what kinds of research conduct are considered to be dishonest, and ensure that researchers know such behaviour is not acceptable.
4. Provide training and guidance
Not all trainees will arrive with the same skill level. Avoid making assumptions about anyone’s prior knowledge concerning e.g. reviewing protocols, proper use of equipment, and data storage and management.
5. Know your research integrity officer (RIO)
Be prepared so that you can act quickly and decisively if you suspect research misconduct. Find out now who the research integrity contact is at your institution (Module 4: violations of research integrity) and share their contact information with your research team.
“I’m the senior researcher and I’m telling you that’s how we’ve always done it. Everybody does it like that and everybody knows everybody is doing it.”
To be clear: only the first part of this video is an example of this slippery slope. The last scenes are part of another storyline. Centre of Innovation, Leiden University (2016) – On being a scientist (afl. 4).
The statement “everyone does it” is a clear reference to what is known in psychology as “self-justification”. Rationalisation helps to reduce the uncomfortable feeling that comes with cognitive dissonance (the conflict between behaviour and norms). Even if one simply invents that reason. By suggesting that deviant behaviour is widespread, you normalise it. In addition to the power of the statement itself, the argumentation in the above movie fragment is presented by the senior researcher with regard to a junior researcher, the hierarchical relationship makes it even stronger.
It is difficult to claim whether junior researchers really commit more misconduct than seniors. Recent research in The Netherlands showed that being a PhD candidate or junior researcher increases the odds of frequently engaging in at least one Questionable Research Practice (Gopalakrishna et al., 2022). A recent meta-analysis (Xie et al., 2021) however claimed junior researchers (self)reported lower frequencies of research misconduct and questionable research practices, in comparison to researchers. The researchers do point out the impact of the supervisor (by adjusting the junior work (prevention) or out of fear of reprisals (both at work and in reporting any misconduct) causing a possible underestimation. Other research also revealed a discrepancy between attitudes towards misconduct (with almost 10.0% of junior respondents willing to falsify or fabricate data to expedite publication) and the actual (self-reported) engaging in misconduct (0.8% admitted to having engaged in data fabrication) (Hofmann et al., 2020), making underestimation very plausible. Whatever the case may be, junior researchers are vulnerable because of tenuous and highly dependent positions and possible lack of experience. The preventative role and great importance of good supervision and mentoring to develop good research skills and prevent research misconduct is well-established scientific knowledge (Haven et al., 2019; Xie et al, 2021).
PhD researcher: “My supervisor is extremely interested in my project and the daily progress. (S)he inquires every day, sometimes more than once about new data, experiments, etc. sometimes immediately followed by suggestions for follow up research. I feel that my role in my own project is very small and I am just executing what my supervisor asks, based on his/her insight. I always thought that doing a PhD is developing your own ideas.”
The supervisor is not supposed to micromanage by not allowing the PhD researcher to develop his/her own project; the PhD researchers should be able to see “the whole picture” if part of a project is carried out.
Their training might be different than yours
As a supervisor and mentor, but also as a (post) doctoral researcher, it’s safe to assume that not everybody was trained in a similar way, adheres to the same principles and rules, and works according to the same standards. Work ethics, reporting, communicating, etc., can be very different because of (unconscious) biased assumptions being made based on gender, past experiences, ethnicity, home country, etc.
For example: a new doctoral researcher might be trained in a culture or research system in which challenging the beliefs of a higher-ranked person such as a supervisor, is rare or not accepted. It may be that this attitude will persist even as the researcher integrates into the new culture, and independently of how open and accessible the supervisor might be. The supervisor is seen as a respected and experienced researcher and the doctoral researcher is honoured to work in his/her research group, so the last thing the doctoral researcher thinks about is to contradict his/her opinion.
Or, maybe, as a supervisor, you may wrongfully assume that your doctoral researcher from country A will start a discussion if (s)he doesn’t agree with a hypothesis you put forward, because all your other colleagues from country B would do this, and surely, you are always open to discuss and hierarchy shouldn’t play a role.
