S3RI Special Seminar

About

The pressure to ‘publish or perish’ increases the chances that researchers report results selectively, apply data dredging, or even try to cheat the system. It is helpful to consider such Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) as a spectrum of behaviours, ranging from honest errors and mistakes at one end, through to misconduct and fraud at the other (Kolstoe, 2024). I will give some recent examples of the spectrum of QRPs from the biomedical literature. As the number of research paper retractions currently on the rise, we can no longer dismiss QRPs as isolated problems of a small number of people behaving sloppily or dishonestly. Instead, every statistician may at times engage in QRPs (Wang, Yan, Katz, 2018) and hence should be aware of the various forms in their and others’ research. Addressing QRPs should be a central part of our activities to facilitate rigorous, transparent, and reproducible research practices.

Simon Kolstoe (2024). Defining the Spectrum of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs). UK Research Integrity Office.
https://doi.org/10.37672/UKRIO.2023.02.QRPs

Min Qi Wang, Alice F Yan, Ralph V Katz (2018). Researcher Requests for Inappropriate Analysis and Reporting: A U.S. Survey of Consulting Biostatisticians. Ann Intern Med., doi:10.7326/M18-1230

Short biography

Leonhard Held is Department Chair and Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Zurich (UZH). He is Founding Director of the Center for Reproducible Science at UZH and Steering Committee Member of the Swiss Reproducibility Network (SwissRN). His current research focuses on statistical aspects of replicability and meta-research.

RSVP/Further Details

This seminar will be held on Highfield Campus in building 100 room 4011 from 2-3pm, this will be followed by refreshments in the MBA Suite from 3-4pm. To attend this seminar you must book a place, bookings close at 1pm on Thursday 24 April 2025.

Any questions or queries please email fss-kee-events@soton.ac.uk

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