Scientific integrity: the importance of advancing in good practices and procedures

The Academic Integrity Committee and the University’s Research and Postgraduate Vice-Rectory held a meeting with an international specialist.

The principles that make up the UCSC Identity Seal have an example of action in one of the most relevant areas of a University: scientific activity and the generation of new knowledge. This was the focus of the webinar carried out by the Academic Integrity Committee and the Vice-Rector for Research and Postgraduate Studies through the Research Directorate of the House of Studies, and which featured the speaker Dr. Sergio Litewka, an Argentine academic specializing in the subject. .

The Rector, Dr. Cristhian Mellado, stressed that the publication of scientific articles is one of the activities that gives the most prestige in the university environment, and forms references in different disciplines. It is also an action that is so relevant that it is considered in the institutional PDE Strategic Development Plan. “It is essential to safeguard spaces for analysis and reflection on ethics,” he specified, adding that good practices are relevant for the activity to be responsible, ensure the integrity of the process, and ownership of the results, which require commitment. institutional and peer, which is important not only for researchers, but also for future professionals.

Dr. Sergio Litewka, doctor from the University of Buenos Aires and Master in Public Health from the University of Salvador, Argentina, pointed out that working on scientific integrity is not a new idea, but it is newer in Latin America, and Chile could be a pioneer. In the area. In industrialized countries, he added, concerns have been going on for quite some time, not only in specialized journals, but also more massively due to the doubts that are generated around the credibility of what is read, due to a growing distrust of scientific work, and due to manipulations by political tendencies to justify therapeutic alternatives or public health behaviors. However, Litewka said, “scientific integrity is much more than worrying about bad practices in scientific activity,” since it also involves focusing on quality, methodology, and results.

The specialist – director of the International Chapter of the Institute of Bioethics and Health Policies of the University of Miami, which is a collaborating center of the World Health Organization (WHO) in ethics and health policies-, referred to general concepts, such as the research ethics and scientific integrity itself, as two sides of the same coin. Although in the latter there is no agreed or definitive definition, four principles can be recognized: honesty, rigor, transparency, and care and respect, adding frankness, accountability, impartiality and objectivity, freedom to investigate, reciprocity, progress and competition. based on merit.

Regarding scientific misconduct, the academic indicated that there are aspects that range from personality, to matters such as institutional incentives, the existence or not of clear rules and adherence to them, the ecosystem and habits of the institution (culture), and the risk/benefit of the violation. Likewise, he carried out an analysis of procedures carried out in other countries as examples of ways to promote scientific integrity in the United States, France, Denmark, England and Argentina, Mexico, Peru.