Rigorous honesty pays

From Investigation finds Swedish scientists committed scientific misconduct by Quirin Schiermeier. I am not knocking Swedish sciences but this report is an interesting example of a phenomenon I come across with some regularity in business, academia, government, etc.

An accusation is made. The sponsoring institution does an initial investigation and dismisses the accusation as unfounded.

Marine biologist Oona Lönnstedt and limnologist Peter Eklöv originally reported in their 2016 paper that microplastic particles had negative effects on young fish, including reducing their efforts to avoid predators. The duo's report described a series of experiments on an island in the Baltic Sea. After other researchers raised questions about data availability and details of the experiments, Uppsala conducted an initial investigation and found no evidence of misconduct.

For whatever reason, usually continued dispute, a second inquiry is made, often involving some independent third party.

However, an expert group of Sweden’s Central Ethical Review Board, which was also tasked with vetting the study, concluded in April 2017 that Lönnstedt and Eklöv “have been guilty of scientific misconduct”. The researchers defended the paper but requested that Science retract it in light of questions about their findings.

The issue remains unresolved because there are two different investigations with contrasting findings. A third study is initiated, this time usually with independent third-parties and with greater transparency. It is only with this invested effort that information comes to light in a fashion that parties on all sides can accept.

To settle the controversy, the university’s vice-chancellor, Eva Åkesson, subsequently handed over the case to the newly established Board for Investigation of Misconduct in Research at Uppsala University for further scrutiny.

In its decision, announced on 7 December, the board finds Lönnstedt guilty of having intentionally fabricated data; it alleges that Lönnstedt did not conduct the experiments during the period — and to the extent — described in the Science paper.

Eklöv, who was Lönnstedt's superviser and co-author, failed to check that the research was carried out as described, the board says. However, by the rules in force at Uppsala at the time of the work, which required that misconduct findings apply only to intentional acts, the board said that Eklöv's failure to check the research "cannot entail liability for misconduct in research" .

Both researchers, the board concluded, "are guilty of misconduct in research by violating the regulations on ethical approval for animal experimentation".

On the basis of the board's report, Åkesson rendered a decision that “Oona Lönnstedt and Peter Eklöv are guilty of misconduct in research.”

Fabricated data is not an easy crime to hide yet it passed muster with the first, internal, review.

This incident is illuminative. Again, I do not think this reflects on Swedish science in particular at all.

Institutions live and die by the trust others have in them and yet those institution's own incentive structures reward actions which undermine trust. To be fair, it can cost a lot of time and money to do good investigations.

In this case, as in so many others, the institution had a strong incentive to find that their researchers had done no wrong. And that is what they found.

It was only with external reviewers that enough effort was made to uncover what had happened.

One bad apple, the field researcher, contravened their institution's own policies and fabricated the data to support her conclusions. Her supervisor then failed to adequately check her work. Basically he made the assumption that she was to be trusted and the error slipped through until the work became public.

The institution was reluctant to punish the supervisor because he had followed procedures.

Much of this, other than the original bad apple researcher makes sense.

The supervisor should have been able to trust the field researcher.

The university was right not to want to spend a lot of time investigating what they probably assumed was a nuisance accusation.

The university was probably right not to significantly punish the supervisor.

And yet . . . From an institutional trust perspective, a lot has been lost. It sure looks like coddled insiders looking after their own and protecting themselves from the type of consequences which would normally have befallen a regular citizen in a market job.

The more frequently this happens in police departments, in academia, in government, all proper and necessary institutions, the more trust falls. A low trust environment with respect to critical institutions is a terrible outcome. When there is low trust, bad things unexpectedly happen. And it costs a lot to recoup trust. Better to pay the piper up front and always be rigorous and transparent in investigations at the very beginning.