Introduction

Transparency about research integrity safeguards trust and confidence in UK research and helps to build the evidence base about research integrity across the UK. In this report, the UK Committee on Research Integrity presents our work on the development of indicators of research integrity for use by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the UK to:

• build the evidence base for research integrity on a UK-wide scale  
• support HEIs to self-assess and improve their support for research integrity 

Project approach

This exploratory project was initiated by the UK Committee on Research Integrity and delivered by a subgroup of the Committee, the Project Working Group, with support from the Committee’s Secretariat.

We worked collaboratively with diverse stakeholders across the HEIs and the wider research sector. Through the project, we convened discussions about quantitative and qualitative indicators of research integrity in the context of contributing to fairer and more inclusive approaches to evaluation of research integrity.

We were mindful not to duplicate effort to create indicators that are being created by other research stakeholders for other purposes, such as for research culture and open research, and where appropriate sought to influence those indicators and those that might have dual use as research integrity indicators.

At a time when research-performing organisations are under increasing pressure, we also reflected on the need to minimise the burden on HEI’s and researcher.

The findings of the consultation were moderated and synthesised by the Project Working Group with oversight from the Advisory Group.  

Outcomes

The project identifies 16 potential indicators that can be used to understand the status and trajectory of the conditions that support research integrity. Looking ahead, it will be important for the research sector to assess whether this prioritised set of indicators support recognition of the conditions that foster research integrity. 

Read the Indicators of Research Integrity 2024 report and executive summary.

Background 

The starting point for most discussions about integrity in research is the number of cases of misconduct. Such information doesn’t tell us enough about the overall quality and progress of UK research integrity.     

Indicators are methods that can be used to understand integrity practice, they can use numerical, narrative or a mixture of approaches.

The Indicators of Research Integrity 2024 report builds on work started by Research Consulting, Cancer Research UK (CRUK), GuildHE and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). This previous work found that indicators may be useful, provided that they are created for specific purposes and are formative (shaping actions and research practices) rather than performative (aligned to policies but not necessarily linked to action plans).  You can read the project materials.  

In September 2022, the committee and project sponsors published a joint response, which set out 5 working principles to develop indicators of research integrity. These principles were adopted in the UK Committee on Research Integrity project on Indicators of Research Integrity.