Science integrity has been never more important: It's all about trust
Christian Behl
Abstract
For the past year, we have been experiencing a global pandemic. The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) virus, has broadly demonstrated how fragile our societies are when it comes to unexpected health challenges, and how important research and scientific information are. More than 2 million people worldwide have lost their lives so far due to this viral infection. Fortunately, the global efforts in the search for effective vaccines appear to have succeeded, and we can hope for a real improvement this year. The current experimental approaches aimed at developing successful vaccines are all innovative and science-driven. In most countries, scientists, many of them virologists, epidemiologists, immunologists, or experts in infectious disease, have become influential partners to politicians, driving the course of current decision-making, with the aim of preventing the virus spread and protecting us. So we see that not only governments, but also scientists are guiding us through this global health crisis, their scientific advice helping us on a daily basis. The prerequisite of a general acceptance of scientific facts is trust in science and scientific integrity. Science is based on facts—scientific hypotheses are formulated and challenged by experimental measures to generate answers. This is not a straightforward process, with many different opinions driving the scientific discussion, and valid challenges and discourse lie at the heart of scientific research and guarantee its progress. During the COVID-19 crisis, science has received huge attention and has earned a special status. As a result of global research efforts, numerous molecular and cellular studies, as well as clinical data, on SARS-CoV2 have been published in a wide variety of journals, including highly influential ones. Since the need for information into this new virus was so pressing, some of these papers were published based on a speedy, and perhaps in some cases, a too superficial peer review process that lacked an in-depth scientific countercheck. As could be expected some of those “Corona papers” could not keep their promise: their data is either under intensive discussion, or they have even already been retracted. This issue clearly underlines, more than ever, the overall need for a high-quality peer review performance to ensure scientific quality and trust in science, as discussed, for example, in Ledford and van Noorden,1 and as clearly stated in Soltani and Patini2: “The publishing parties must keep in mind that swiftly published but erroneous data is not helpful for the medical community in their ongoing battle with COVID-19. What we actually need (possibly more than any time) is correct, meticulous, and unbiased information passed through rigorous critical appraisal methods of the scientific community.” Independent peer referees are the heart of the evaluation process of scientific publications and work hard to secure quality standards. But due to an immense increase in the number of submissions in recent years, it has become hard(er) to get support from referees, many of whom are already overloaded with reviewing work. In addition, with increasing numbers of submissions, the number of manuscripts showing data flaws and manipulations unfortunately also increases. It is very difficult, almost impossible, for the expert science referee to identify all misconduct, especially when it comes to manipulations implemented by professional image editing software. Scientific mistakes, misconduct, data manipulations, and fraud are not a new phenomenon, they have been around just as long as scientific publishing has. However, in recent years, many journals have been the target of multiple attempts of fraud, partly orchestrated by so called “paper mill offices” that make a living out of manipulating or constructing data and mass-producing fraudulent manuscripts for submission. Fortunately, this general problem has been clearly recognized by the publishing community as noted in Byrne and Christopher,3 which states that “Paper mills are alleged to offer products ranging from research data through to ghostwritten fraudulent or fabricated manuscripts and submission services.” and also identifies frequent patterns of fraud. In recent years, the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry (JCB) has received, and unknowingly published articles generated by such “paper mills.” Coming in as the new Editor-in-Chief in June 2020, I joined forces with the Wiley editorial office and their expert support teams to tackle this problem. As a result, the new stringent check on possible manipulation at submission has become a key part of the journal's workflow. In addition, suspicious publications are being checked and retracted if manipulation is found. Currently, 137 articles, published between 2017 and 2020, are alleged to show image manipulation. This represents 3.7% of all papers published in our journal during that time-span. We are investigating all these articles according to the Committee on Publications and Ethics (COPE) guidelines, including image checks, and are contacting the authors of the papers involved. 23 investigations were completed in 2020, resulting in retractions; the remaining articles are still under investigation. By publishing the retractions, we want to ensure that stringent publication standards are maintained in our journal, and also correct the publication record. This is critically important for trust in scientific publications and published research, including trust for our journal, and for the authors who have published and will continue to publish their valid research in JCB. There have been other changes at the journal. A new team of Executive Editors was formed, and the Editorial Board was revised; many new members were invited, selected based on their scientific expertise to shape the renewed scope of the journal. Together, we have installed a number of new measures in our effort to detect deliberate fraud and thus separate good science from problematic papers. We have defined new aims and scope and launched new author guidelines with a strong focus on an internationally accepted data reporting policy aligned with that of COPE. Raw data underlying the images displayed in an article are requested at submission, and before final acceptance a professional image check team checks all images in the article with the help of software. If any questions arise as a result of this process, the authors are asked for an explanation. Being critical is at the core of science and this means being alert and raising doubts when necessary, or, to put it in the more pointed words of Descartes, “Everything is to be doubted.” The editorial team of JCB live by and implement daily, with all available measures, the idea that scientific integrity is essential for the benefit of science. As the new Editor-in-Chief, and having experts in the field by my side as Executive Editors, I feel that now we are all set for new times, which reflect the importance of scientific data in which we can trust. For our authors, we are working hard with the new team, to offer a quick and collegial publishing experience, with a timely, fair, and stringent peer review process at it's heart to ensure the reputation of all. We welcome all submissions that fit the new aims and scope of JCB and we are also planning new initiatives. As a first step, we will publish Special Issues focussing on topics of special interest, curated by guest editors who are experts in the research field. The first issue in this series is scheduled to be published in summer 2021 and highlights the co-chaperone BAG3. There is a call for papers and we welcome submissions that meet JCB's standards. Watch out for more calls for papers to come, and feel free to contact us at [email protected] with suggestions for a focussed issue in your field of expertise. JCB has been a strong and renowned publishing platform for many years, starting with the first issue almost 50 years ago. With the restructuring and renewal of the Journal in 2020, we are now striving for a strong future, together with our authors and readers, that is dedicated to the publication of high quality research on cellular biochemistry