Research Integrity and Responsible Open Science

Integrity principles

The ALLEA 2023 Code frames research integrity around reliability, honesty, respect, and accountability across disciplines and research settings [SW-S27]. Apply those principles throughout drafting, not only at submission.

• Preserve the original record and an audit trail.
• Report methods, deviations, uncertainty, and findings honestly.
• Correct material errors promptly and transparently.
• Respect participants, communities, collaborators, animals, the environment, and legitimate rights in knowledge and data.
• Assign credit fairly and accept accountability.
• Do not fabricate, falsify, plagiarize, selectively omit, or conceal provenance.

If potential misconduct or a material error appears, preserve records and follow the institutional, funder, journal, and legal process. Do not investigate by exposing sensitive material to unapproved systems.

Open science with safeguards

UNESCO's Recommendation supports accessible, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable open science while recognizing legitimate restrictions for confidentiality, personal information, intellectual property, threatened resources, and protected knowledge [SW-S28].

For every data, code, materials, and protocol statement:

1. Confirm ownership, consent, ethics terms, contracts, law, and repository policy.
2. Identify what underlies the reported claims.
3. Choose an appropriate repository and access model.
4. Record versions, persistent identifiers, licenses, metadata, and retention.
5. State restrictions and an actual access process.
6. Verify that the deposited files match the analysis and do not expose restricted information.

Do not promise public availability merely because a template asks for it. "Available on request" must describe a real, authorized, sustainable process if the venue permits that form.

Prospective transparency

Where applicable, record:

• study registration;
• protocol and amendments;
• analysis plan and timing;
• outcome and model definitions;
• data-management and sharing plan;
• materials, software, environment, and versions;
• departures from prespecification.

The Center for Open Science's TOP 2025 framework provides practices for registration, protocols, analysis plans, materials, data, code, reporting transparency, and verification [SW-S30]. These practices are flexible policy components, not a universal score for an individual manuscript.

NIH's Data Management and Sharing Policy applies to covered NIH research and expects planning, budgeting, submission of a plan, and compliance with the approved plan [SW-S29]. Check the specific funder, award, institute, and effective requirements.

Reproducibility package

When policy and rights permit, preserve:

• immutable raw-data references rather than uncontrolled copies;
• cleaned or analysis-ready data with provenance;
• executable analysis code and environment information;
• software and model versions;
• randomization or seed handling where relevant;
• machine-readable tables behind reported displays;
• a mapping from outputs to manuscript claims;
• checksums, releases, and persistent identifiers.

Never share secrets, credentials, direct identifiers, restricted variables, proprietary source code, or licensed source documents in a public package.

Corrections and versions

Before submission, check for corrected, retracted, superseded, or updated sources. After dissemination:

• preserve the original version where policy requires;
• describe what changed and why;
• link corrections to the affected record;
• update downstream data, code, tables, and claims;
• notify the appropriate journal, repository, collaborators, and oversight bodies.

Do not silently edit a scientific record in a way that hides a material change.

Negative and null findings

Open science includes an accurate record of outcomes that do not support the preferred narrative. Preserve negative, null, adverse, failed, and inconclusive results when they are part of the study record. Describe their uncertainty and limitations; do not reinterpret them as proof of absence.