研究不正問題をどう考えるか

研究公正と「責任」の問題

抄録

After a series of serious misconduct cases uncovered in the previous years, the situation surrounding research misconduct in Japan is changing dramatically. The government stipulated new guidelines for research misconduct in 2014. As such, the research institutions are now required to implement measures to prevent misconduct, including research integrity education. In the face of this rapidly changing situation, it seems imperative to clarify what the research misconduct issues are and to closely examine countermeasures. Research misconduct is principally defined as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. But what is wrong with these types of behavior? In the case of plagiarism, it is considered unforgivable not because it poses any real harm or breaches the law, but because it violates the moral norms of the scientific community and damages the ecosystem of scientific research. “Responsible” conduct, which is emphasized in the discourse on research integrity, could be properly understood by considering this intrinsic dimension of research misconduct. Examining the “responsible” authorship issues makes it possible to illuminate another feature of research integrity. While the biomedical community has been elaborating on the criteria for “responsible” authorship, the high energy physics community formulated an alternative model of authorship: collective authorship. This difference stems from a constellation of internal and external factors of a given scientific community. This shows that research integrity is deeply embedded in the economy of scientific research.