Institutional Culture Matters: Findings from a Ten-Country Survey on Research Integrity in Biomedical Institutions Across Central and Eastern Europe

Background Our study was designed to investigate research integrity among scientists actively working in biomedicine. Using the unique opportunity of the Alliance for Life Sciences, a networking initiative of leading research institutions and universities in Central and Eastern Europe, we organized our own in-depth survey on research integrity in the countries involved. Methods We employed a standardized questionnaire consisting of 19 closed questions with simple, multiple-choice, or scaled responses to explore the situation regarding research integrity at Alliance for Life Sciences member institutions. The questionnaire was in English language and was administered through the Qualtrics platform anonymously. Finally, 10 institutions from 10 different countries participated in the study and the aggregated group of respondents consisted of 752 scientists. First, the analysis of the obtained data included descriptive frequencies of the responses to all types of questions. Second, the construction and analysis of the structural model of latent variables was included to verify assumptions about individual aspects of the observed behavior and their interrelationships. Results Our data provide the first systematic description of research integrity in the biomedical research environment in 10 Central and Eastern European countries. Because the majority of our respondents were experienced researchers, our study is really valuable for mapping the state of research integrity in participating countries. The descriptive part of the results brings a detailed insight into the institutional environment, as well as recent and former personal experiences with scientific misconduct. It also covers the personal acceptability of various forms and consequences of scientific misconduct and personal estimations of scientific misconduct. Moreover, the unique findings of our study came from the structural model showing the correlations between latent and higher-order variables, which reflect relevant domains of the questionnaire. These results emphasized the importance of the institution's overall culture regarding scientific integrity, which is apparently interconnected with the incidence of various forms of misconduct as experienced recently or in the past. Conclusions Our study using a structural model of latent variables yielded unique results clearly showing that cultivating a healthy institutional environment is essential to reducing the risk of scientific misconduct. Trial registration: Not applicable