Research Integrity Concerns & Investigations

What may constitute misconduct

Potential misconduct includes fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, fraudulent authorship, falsified ethical approval, manipulated peer review, citation manipulation, false affiliation, deceptive image alteration, paper-mill activity and deliberate concealment of material conflicts.

Honest error, uncertainty and legitimate disagreement are not automatically misconduct. The evidential question is whether there is a serious departure from accepted research or publication practice and whether the reliability or integrity of the record is affected.

Raising a concern

Concerns may be submitted by authors, reviewers, readers, institutions, funders, regulators or anonymous or pseudonymous sources. A person raising a concern need not prove misconduct before assessment begins but should provide specific information or a reasonable route to verification.

BMU’s general publisher contact is info@bmuventures.com. Where a journal provides a dedicated ethics address, the journal-specific route should ordinarily be used first.

Initial assessment

A journal should identify the issue, preserve relevant records, assess urgency and conflicts, and determine whether the matter can be handled editorially or requires external institutional investigation. Interim action may be taken to protect confidentiality, participants, evidence or the publication record without implying a final finding.

Opportunity to respond

Persons materially affected should ordinarily be informed of the substance of a concern and given a reasonable opportunity to respond, subject to lawful protection of persons raising concerns, confidential reviewer information and other sensitive material. Failure to respond does not prevent a decision on available evidence.

Evidence and independent advice

Relevant evidence may include original data, images, approvals, consent documentation, contribution records, correspondence, similarity reports, system logs and institutional findings. Independent methodological, statistical, image, ethical, technical or legal advice may be sought where needed.

Cooperation with institutions

A journal may refer a matter to an employer, university, funder, ethics committee, regulator or other competent body when access to evidence or disciplinary authority exceeds the journal’s powers.

The journal should not delay necessary corrections or reader-protection measures indefinitely merely because an external investigation is incomplete.

Protection for persons raising concerns

BMU does not support retaliation against a person who raises a concern in good faith or participates in an investigation. An unsubstantiated allegation is not necessarily malicious.

Deliberately fabricated allegations or falsified evidence may themselves constitute misconduct, but criticism, persistence, anonymity or inability to prove the concern independently do not establish bad faith.

Possible publication actions

Depending on the evidence and effect on the record, action may include clarification, additional review, rejection, rescission of acceptance, correction, expression of concern, retraction, redaction, exceptional removal or referral to an external authority. Publication action should be proportionate and need not wait for proof of individual misconduct where the work is already shown to be unreliable.