Step up for quality research

In response to calls for change from within and outside the scientific community, funding agencies, journals, and professional societies are developing new requirements to promote reproducibility and integrity in research. Amid this activity, the voices of academic institutions—both their leadership and rank-and-file faculty—have largely been quiet. Yet journals, societies, and funding agencies are not in the laboratory, clinic, or field. They do not analyze data, write manuscripts, or prepare figures. Institutions that comprise the global academic community can do more to help their researchers produce the highest-quality results. The three areas of actions, described below, echo points highlighted in the recent U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, Fostering Integrity in Research , as well as at the 2017 World Conference on Research Integrity in May.