International Research Collaborations

Much to be Gained, Many Ways to Get in Trouble

Melissa S. Anderson, Nicholas H. Steneck

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781136951619
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

Encouraged by their institutions and governments and aided by advances in technology and communication, researchers increasingly pursue international collaborations with high hopes for scientific breakthroughs, intellectual stimulation, access to research equipment and populations, and the satisfaction of global engagement. International Research Collaborations considers what can and does go wrong in cross-national research collaborations, and how scientists can avoid these problems in order to create and sustain productive, mutually-enriching partnerships.

Unfamiliar approaches to training, legal and regulatory complications, and differences in funding and administration pose challenges for collaboration that are then compounded by the need to satisfy the requirements of different research systems. To help today's international researchers create the best possible partnerships, chapters by funding officers, diplomats, attorneys, publishers, regulators, graduate students and postdocs, industry researchers, administrators, and scholars of responsible research address the following key trouble spots:

• how research is organized and funded
• the legal and normative environments of research
• differences in regulation and oversight
• variation in graduate education and postdoctoral training.

International Research Collaborations will provide valuable insights to researchers who are collaborating or who intend to collaborate, as well as to administrators, funders, regulators, editors, and policy-makers involved in cross-national research.

Part I
International Research Collaborations

1
What Can Be Gained and What Can Go Wrong in the Context of Different National Research Environments

Melissa S.Anderson

Scientific research is an increasingly international enterprise. Large-scale projects such as the CERN Large Hadron Collider require the participation of teams of physicists from all over the world. Much of biomedical research deals with diseases whose causes, spread and treatment know no national bounds. Major engineering and social-science projects are also likely to be international in scope. Scientists who work in specific disciplinary sub-specialties are often dispersed around the globe. Prompted and enabled by advances in technology and communication, cross-national collaborations have come to characterize much of science.

For the purposes of this volume, international research collaborations are research projects that involve investigators whose primary employment affiliations are in different countries. They range from multi-national projects involving substantial infrastructure development, to mid-range collaborations among several sites or laboratories (including clinical trials), to simple projects involving two scientists from different countries. They may be long-term or limited in duration. These collaborations are subject to challenges common to all collaborative research (Who is in charge? Who will actually do the work? How shall credit be assigned for the products of the collaboration?). There are also complications arising from the cross-national nature of the work. Some of these relate to the team’s productivity (How will the investigators deal with the demands of different administrative and regulatory structures? How will international travel and communication affect the maintenance of the collaboration? How will normative differences be negotiated?). Others have to do with ensuring the integrity of the research (How can integrity be ensured when national standards and oversight mechanisms differ widely? How can collaborators verify that research processes and products meet appropriate standards for integrity? When rules and policies differ, whose rules apply?).

This book’s purpose is to call attention to challenges that many scientists and their institutions ignore or discount in their rush to establish international partnerships. In a competitive environment nearly devoid of international oversight, research collaborations are sometimes put together in haste, with little thought to what it will take to maintain productivity and integrity throughout the project.

There is often a great deal at stake in international collaborations, due to the substantial investment of funding and effort required to initiate and maintain them. The complications of navigating separate bureaucracies, different funding systems, geographic distance and languages tend to give these collaborations high profiles. There is much to be gained from international collaborations, but when problems arise, they tend to attract a disproportionate amount of attention, especially if something goes seriously wrong.

Problems are often attributed to miscommunication, language barriers, cultural misunderstanding or management issues. Only as a case unfolds does it become apparent that many challenges and problems are due to fundamental, cross-national differences in the way science is organized and done.

In a sense, of course, research is the same everywhere; this fact is what enables global research collaboration in the first place. In another sense, all research is subject to the management styles, expertise, experience, preferences and idiosyncrasies of the individuals involved. Between these extremes, however, are systematic patterns of difference across different research contexts. The systematic differences that are most prominent and detectable in international (“between-nation”) collaborations are those related to differences in national research systems. These differences and their influences on cross-national scientific collaboration are the subject of this book.

Challenges encountered in cooperative ventures of any kind are compounded by the need to meet the demands of different research systems. For example, one country’s stricter human- or animal-subject regulations may impose unfamiliar protocols on all collaborators. Administrative approval processes may appear byzantine to outsiders. Scientists from other countries may make unfounded and risky assumptions about students’ training in scientific methods or the responsible conduct of research. Problems like these can derail a project’s progress or, worse, lead to allegations of misconduct, mismanagement or illegalities.

The authors of this volume consider four primary dimensions of national research systems relevant to cross-national research collaboration: (1) the organization and funding of research; (2) legal and normative environments; (3) regulatory and publication oversight; and (4) graduate education and postdoctoral training. International variations in these four areas can lead to substantially different assumptions and expectations about how research projects are to be planned, performed and reported. Unless scientists are aware of differences in these assumptions, they may not anticipate or address issues that may arise from these differences in areas such as compliance with national laws and policies, authority within the administrative hierarchy, responsibilities of postdocs, and so on. Such issues can compromise a team’s productivity and the integrity of their work.

This volume aims to raise awareness within academic and other research communities of the variety and scope of complications that can and do arise in international research collaborations, as well as strategies that show promise for addressing potential problems. The overarching questions that this volume addresses are:

• What threats to productivity and integrity arise in international research collaborations because of differences in national research systems?

• What can be done to mitigate such threats?

Our contacts with scientists and research administrators confirm that many researchers are eager to initiate cross-national collaborations. Most have not considered fully what they need to know and do to benefit from these projects and to stay out of trouble.

Overview of the Book

The authors of this volume address these issues from varied perspectives. Some are scientists; others have administrative responsibilities at the institutional, national or international level; still others are scholars of international systems or related topics. All consider ways in which international research collaborations are complicated by cross-national differences.

The chapters in the first section, including this one, frame the issues under consideration. The first two are by the book’s editors, Melissa Anderson and Nick Steneck, scholars whose research focuses on research integrity, particularly in the international context. Nick’s chapter invites consideration of how research integrity, a critical element of any research collaboration, should be handled in the international arena. Gray Handley’s broad view of international collaborations and how scientists should approach them derives from his experiences in diplomacy and scientific research, and at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The next four parts address the dimensions of the national research systems identified above. The first considers differences in how national systems organize and fund research. David Chapman studies educational systems at the international level, and he and his colleagues focus here on the organizational properties of research in China, India, Germany, Brazil and the United States. Tony Mayer, a geologist with research-administration experience in Europe and Singapore, traces the development of national approaches to funding scientific research. Ping Sun’s work at the Chinese Ministry of Education and the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China informs his review of national-level research developments in China.

The next dimension of national research systems is the legal and normative environments of research, representing formal and informal ways, respectively, of prescribing appropriate behavior in science. Mark Bohnhorst and colleagues write from their experience as university attorneys or directors of international programs. They discuss legal requirements and issues that international collaborators must consider if they are to stay out of trouble in their own and other countries. Alexander Capron, a legal scholar and former director of an office within the World Health Organization, suggests that the rules and regulations to which cross-national collaborations are subject are inappropriately dominated by U.S. regulatory frameworks. Ray De Vries and his co-authors then argue that norms of scientific research, which are informal but powerful means of defining and promoting proper behavior, need to be negotiated in cross-national contexts. Their chapter draws on their extensive sociological research in international arenas.

The third dimension of national research systems relates to regulatory oversight of research. Christine (Tina) Boesz and Peggy Fischer draw on their experience in the Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. National Science Foundation, as well as their participation in the Global Science Forum’s development of guidelines for research integrity worldwide. They discuss the challenges of investigating allegations of research misconduct internationally. The former director of the UK Research Integrity Office, Andy Stainthorpe, then takes a pan-European view of research-integrity efforts. Specific integrity problems associated with research publication are reviewed by Herbert Stegemann and colleagues, who have worked extensively with Latin American journals and international publication associations. Oversight is clearly difficult, since international collaborations are presumably as susceptible to questionable behavior as any other cooperative ventures, and there are no good cross-national mechanisms by which to address problems.

The fourth and final dimension of national research systems is graduate education and postdoctoral training. These differ globally in their relation to national policy and government control, but they are shaped everywhere by the other aspects of national research systems. The first chapter in this section illustrates the distinctive features of doctoral education in seven different countries and suggests how these characteristics may give rise to challenges in cross-national research. The authors of these accounts are doctoral students or postdoctoral fellows, writing about the graduate systems in their own countries. John Godfrey, Assistant Dean for International Education at the University of Michigan, considers postdoctoral training in a cross-national context. Liz Heitman’s chapter, written with a colleague, draws on her experience as director of a program in research-ethics education in Costa Rica. It illustrates what is involved in delivering training on ethical issues across national boundaries.

The last part of the book presents advice and recommendations on moving toward successful international collaborations. Camille Nebeker and Stewart Lyman both give advice on how to manage such cooperative work, Camille from the standpoint of institutional research administration, and Stewart from the point of view of industrial research. In the final chapter, the editors draw conclusions about the benefits and challenges of cross-national research. They point out that the benefits of collaboration are more likely to be realized if cooperation is driven by the demands of the research itself, not by a vague assumption that international work always yields superior outcomes. They also review the challenges that are presented in this volume.

The issues addressed above are given immediacy in a set of chapters that appear in the appendix. These chapters by distinguished scientists with wide experience in international research collaborations provide an inside view of cross-national research and the factors that complicate it. Ibrahim Adib Abdel-Messih tells about research in his native Egypt. Prem Pais and his co-authors write about their collaborative experiences in India. Jim Leckie’s stories are based on his research projects in Singapore and China. These first-person accounts bear a reminder that the issues here are not merely theoretical, but quite real and with real consequences for the people involved, their colleagues, their subjects and others.

The “much to be gained” referenced in this volume’s subtitle is currently driving increased interest and investment in international collaborations. What receives less attention are the “many ways to get in trouble,” as presented in this volume. Researchers who are aware of potential challenges and prepared to deal with them are more likely to have positive, productive collaborations. This book is written to that end.

2
Research Integrity in the Context of Global Cooperation

Nicholas H.Steneck

Most researchers presumably set out to conduct research with integrity. There are, of course, exceptions. Estimates are that as many as one in every 100 researchers in the United States deliberately engages in what colleagues believe is serious misbehavior (Martinson, Anderson, & de Vries, 2005). However, the other 99 presumably do the best they can, balancing needs and pressures with their understanding of what is, in some countries, called “good research practice” (GRP), and in others the “responsible conduct of research” (RCR).

Researchers also agree that the standards for “good” or “responsible” practice should be set very high. In its 2001 report on conflict of interest, the American Association of Universities urged the “leaders of the academic community to ensure that research conducted on our campuses meets the highest standards of ethics and integrity and promotes the public health” (American Association of Universities, 2001). The European Commissioner for Science and Research, Janez Poto

nik, urged colleagues to think in terms of the “highest standards of integrity” in his 2007 presentation at the First World Conference on Research Integrity (Poto

nik, 2007). In principle, high standards for integrity in research are generally expected. However, translating this expectation into practice is not as easy as one might expect. This chapter evaluates the global structures currently in place for setting and maintaining standards for integrity in research, with particular attention to governments, research institutions, and research professionals. The chapter opens with thoughts on what is meant by “integrity” and closes with suggestions for further steps to foster integrity in research around the world.

Integrity, Misconduct, and Questionable Research Practices

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Table of contents

• International Studies in Higher Education
• Contents
• Series Editors’ Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• Part I International Research Collaborations
• Part II Differences in the Organization and Funding of Research
• Part III Differences in Legal and Normative Environments
• Part IV Differences in Regulatory and Publication Oversight
• Part V Differences in Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Training
• Part VI Toward Successful International Research Collaborations
• Appendices