Trends in Extramural Research Integrity Allegations Received at NIH

At the start of the year, we briefly touched on our efforts to address research integrity violations in our 2022 Year In Review. Today we are sharing some more information on the overall trends in research integrity allegations associated with the NIH grants process. I want to note that while we are sharing these aggregate data, NIH does not discuss grants compliance reviews on specific funded awards, recipient institutions, or supported investigators, and whether such reviews occurred or are underway. Table 1 shows the total number of new research integrity allegation types that NIH received between calendar years (CYs) 2013 and 2022. These include allegations related to traditional research misconduct and professional misconduct, such as peer review, foreign interference, harassment, grant fraud, and other types. We generally handled an average of 100 violations each year up to around 2017. Over the last five years, however, the numbers rose precipitously. Table 1: Total Research Integrity Allegation Types: CYs 2013 to 2022 Calendar Year Allegations* 2013 104 2014 110 2015 89 2016 77 2017 117 2018 342 2019 549 2020 531 2021 573 2022 564 * Represents the number of allegation types received each calendar year (not the number of allegations). For instance, an allegation that involves two different types (such as research misconduct and harassment) is counted twice. Our integrity portfolio broadened greatly around 2018 as professional misconduct became...
Source: NIH Extramural Nexus - Category: Research Authors: Tags: blog Open Mike Peer review Research integrity Source Type: funding