Every two years the World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI) gathers together the global community of individuals and organisations committed to upholding the integrity of research. This year’s conference covered topics ranging from researcher training on research integrity to the importance of diversity and inclusivity in research.

In this blog, I’ll delve into three recurring themes from the conference and share how Karger is championing integrity in each area.  

Reproducibility and Research Integrity 

At WCRI, we heard updates from the TIER2 project which has a goal of “Enhancing Trust, Integrity and Efficiency in Research through next-level Reproducibility”. Reproducibility is a topic we have written about previously in a blog on ‘Centring reproducibility and transparency in health science research’ and lies at the heart of Karger’s Open Science mission. Since this 2022 blog post, we’ve made significant strides in promoting reproducible, trusted research: 

• We now accept submissions for study protocols as methods articles across almost all Karger journals 

• We’ve published registered reports in two journals 

 By supporting authors in transparency in study and analysis design, our aim is to make research pre-registration standard practice.  

Artificial Intelligence (AI): Friend or Foe? 

Throughout the conference, we learned about how Generative AI is being used by students, researchers, and publishers, including a fascinating plenary session on ‘Perspectives on Research Integrity and Generative Artificial Intelligence’ where its dual nature was explored:  

• Many speakers and poster presenters told us about how Generative AI will make it easier for bad actors to fabricate images and data in papers and how it can be used to create text that contains hallucinations and confabulations. Since May 2023, Karger has had a public policy for authors on the responsible use of Generative AI in studies and manuscripts that highlights the importance of transparency and information verification.  

• The bright side: We also heard about how AI is being used to combat fraud from image duplication detection to inappropriate citation classification and beyond. At Karger, we have recognised the opportunity provided by AI to safeguard research integrity for some time. Imagetwin, an AI-powered image integrity software, was awarded the Vesalius Innovation Award by Karger Publishers in 2022 and at WCRI this year I presented a poster on our findings of the prevalence of image duplication in manuscript submissions, using Imagetwin.  

Looking to the future, it is clear that AI and research integrity will be in constant interaction with AI both strengthening and posing a challenge to our efforts — a dynamic interaction that demands vigilance and innovation. 

Combatting paper mills: strength in collaboration 

A recurring theme that echoed through many conversations at WCRI was the challenge threat posed to the scholarly record by paper mills. I have discussed this challenge in a previous blog and at WCRI we heard about how this industry-wide problem is impacting researchers and publishers. From detecting patterns in the literature linked to potential paper mills to how publishers can collaborate and harness technology to detect paper mills before publication, this topic garnered substantial interest culminating in a plenary session on ‘Addressing the challenge of paper mills through research and policy’.  

The United2Act against paper mills initiative (U2A) was mentioned regularly throughout the conference. Karger is a proud signatory of United2Act and an active contributor to U2A Working Group 2. As part of Karger’s commitment to tackling paper mills, I co-authored the initial report from this working group on ‘Recommendations for improving the process of making post-publication corrections’. Through such collaborations, we are addressing the collective challenge of paper mills in scholarly publishing. 

A cornerstone of trust in research is research integrity; encompassing everything from research planning to publishing to translation into practice. The theme of WCRI 2024, ‘Catalysing the translation of research into trustworthy policy and innovation’, aligns perfectly with our mission at Karger. We are dedicated to our role throughout the cycle of knowledge in the transfer of trusted, innovative scientific findings to the scientific community, healthcare professionals, patients, and caregivers. By collaborating and harnessing technology and AI, we are ensure that our community has access to reproducible, trusted research when they need it. 

Note: WCRI was sponsored in part by Karger Publishers.