Cynthia Vitale1, Dr Leslie McIntosh1
1Ripeta, St Louis, USA
Despite the best efforts of researchers, policy makers, and others in the scientific field, misinformation and disinformation pertaining to scientific outcomes and recommendations proliferates worldwide. Scientific integrity practices and policies are a significant mechanism leveraged within the scholarly communications ecosystem to enhance trust and uphold responsible research. While the burden of improving scientific integrity has frequently been placed on individuals, the responsibility of upholding, fostering, and maintaining scientific integrity rests on all stakeholders producing and consuming scientific information. Individual initiatives to improve science – while noble – can neither adequately support the research infrastructure, nor defend scientific integrity against coordinated attacks. We posit that mitigating misinformation and increasing trust in science requires a coordinated approach, and “cultures and practices of scientific integrity” across sectors and stakeholders. Advancement requires that we distribute and support responsibility across scientific communications stakeholders, and seek a collective approach across the broader ecosystem of funding agencies, publishers, scholarly societies, institutions, journalists, and policy makers. This presentation will briefly highlight some known scientific integrity issues and recommendations for each sector to enhance research trust.
Biography:
Dr. Leslie McIntosh, PhD is the founder and CEO of Ripeta, a company formed to improve scientific research quality and reproducibility. Now part of Digital Science, the company leads efforts in rapidly assessing scientific research to make better science easier. She served as the inaugural executive director for the US region of the Research Data Alliance and is still very active with the RDA.
She has experience leading diverse teams to develop and deliver meaningful data to improve scientific decisions. Dr. McIntosh is an accomplished biomedical informatician and data scientist as well as an internationally known consultant, speaker, and trainer who is passionate about mentoring the next generation of data scientists.
She holds a Masters and PhD in Public Health with concentrations in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from Saint Louis University and a Certificate in Women’s Leadership Forum from Washington University Olin’s School of Business.