Call for papers - Research integrity: where next?

Guest Editors

Lida Anestidou, DVM, MS, PhD, Communities in Science, USA
Rosemarie de la Cruz Bernabe, PhD, University of Oslo and University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway
Panagiotis Kavouras, MSc, PhD, National Technical University of Athens, Greece and University of Oslo, Norway

Submission Status: Open | Submission Deadline: 3 September 2025

BMC Research Notes invites researchers to contribute to the discourse on research integrity, focusing on the challenges and advancements in maintaining ethical standards in scientific inquiry. We welcome submissions that explore topics such as publication ethics, authorship guidelines, the implications of research misconduct, and innovative training and education initiatives for research integrity. By fostering a deeper understanding of research integrity, we aim to enhance the credibility and reliability of scientific research for the benefit of society.

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Meet the Guest Editors

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Lida Anestidou, DVM, MS, PhD, Communities in Science, USA

Dr Lida Anestidou has over 20 years of experience with international programs in science policy and responsible science. Her consultancy, Communities in Science, focuses on One Health; biomedical ethics, scientific integrity, and responsible science; veterinary medicine; (lab) animal ethics and welfare; and global health security. Her clients include the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Organization on Animal Health (WOAH, formerly OIE), and the Council of Canadian Academies. Dr Anestidou holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree from Aristotle University in Greece (her home country), a Master’s in Veterinary Sciences from the University of Florida, and a PhD in Physiology from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. She currently serves as Managing Editor of Science and Engineering Ethics.

Rosemarie de la Cruz Bernabe, PhD, University of Oslo and University of South-Eastern Norway, Norway

Dr Rosemarie Bernabe is a Research Ethics and Research Integrity Professor at the University of Oslo and an Adjunct Professor of Medical Research Ethics at the University of South-Eastern Norway. Her research interests are at the intersection of research ethics and regulatory science, and she has applied this area to various applications. She is/was project coordinator of several Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe projects and some nationally funded projects, including ROSiE (the Responsible Open Science In Europe Project); BEYOND (Beyond bad apples: towards a behavioral and evidence-based approach to promoting research ethics and research integrity in Europe); XR4Human (The equitable, inclusive, and human-centered XR project); AccessAfrica (Improving post-trial access in Africa); AccessAfrica2 (Strengthening clinical trial regulatory and ethical review oversight in East Africa); Pandemic Ethics (Developing national and global agendas for the ethics of post-trial arrangements in LMICs during pandemics/epidemics), and ETHIMED (Ethics in research and clinical practice).

Panagiotis Kavouras, MSc, PhD, National Technical University of Athens, Greece and University of Oslo, Norway

Dr Panagiotis Kavouras is a senior researcher at the School of Chemical Engineering, National Technical University of Athens, and a researcher (20% position) at the Institute of Health and Society, Centre for Medical Ethics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo. Dr Kavouras is a physicist with an MSc and a PhD in Physics. For several years, he was involved in research on solid waste management and the characterization of materials' physical and engineering properties. During the last seven years, he has been focused on research integrity through participating in several relevant EU-funded projects. For three years (2021-2023), he held a column on research integrity in Greek and was involved in awareness-raising activities for research integrity in Greece. He was a member of the Program Committee of the 1st and 2nd ENRIO Congress on Research Integrity Practice and the Local Organizing Committee of the 8^th World Conference on Research Integrity. He is a member of the Program Committee of the 3rd ENRIO Congress on Research Integrity Practice and a member of the editorial board of RIPE (Research Integrity Practice in Europe).

About the Collection

BMC Research Notes is calling for submissions to an upcoming Collection dedicated to examining how scientists can ensure trust and confidence throughout the research process and highlighting the key issues we face in maintaining the integrity of research across all academic fields.

As the reliability of scientific research and its practitioners seems increasingly called into question, greater scrutiny is being given to the practices and principles that maintain robust, responsible research. Events such as the ongoing reproducibility crises and the recent spike in publicized cases of research misconduct have placed science in a delicate position. However, this heightened scrutiny also offers the opportunity for a frank discussion on the challenges the field faces and how we might reform its more problematic practices.

This Collection will present the latest research and insights on ensuring the integrity of scientific inquiry and publication. Topics of interest to this Collection include but are not limited to:

Transparency and reproducibility across research
Maintaining public trust in science
Open science
Effectiveness of educational or policy interventions in publication ethics
Methodologies and technologies for detecting scientific misconduct
Data privacy, security, and ethical considerations in emerging research areas such as artificial intelligence, big data, and interdisciplinary research
Global perspectives on research integrity
Ethics in authorship and contributorship
Peer review integrity
Effective methods for tracking and maintaining research integrity across research fields
Research Integrity challenges in crisis and emergency research settings
Community, societal, and public engagement in research integrity
Accountability mechanisms and standards for promoting research Integrity
Non-researchers’ accountability in research misconduct and their responsibility in upholding research integrity
Research integrity challenges in non-traditional collaborative settings

This Collection will also consider submissions discussing training and education initiatives for research integrity. However, the approaches described should be innovative and focused on preparing for future developments in the field (rather than discussing established challenges and solutions to maintaining research integrity).

There are currently no articles in this collection.

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our submission guidelines to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, Snapp. During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select Research integrity: where next? from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.