The next webinar in the series of monthly sessions from the UK Research Integrity Office will be An Introduction to Research Integrity, discussing key issues relating to good practice in research and the challenges that researchers can face when ensuring that research is high quality and of high ethical standards. The webinar will be of particular interest to research students; early-career researchers; and team leaders, principal investigators, managers, supervisors, research integrity officers and others who wish to make sure their researchers are informed about issues of good research practice.

SPEAKERS

James Parry, Chief Executive of UKRIO will look at the challenges involved in ensuring that research is high quality and of high ethical standards, discuss the pressures faced by researchers and explore what researchers and organisations can do to safeguard and enhance good research practice.

Dr Irene Hames, Independent Advisor and UKRIO Advisory Board Member, will discuss the important issue of authorship in research: the issues researchers face in getting appropriate credit for their research contributions, the impact problems and disputes can have on their lives, professional and personal, and what can be done to help avoid problems arising.

Dr Jessica Butler, Analytical Lead and Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen, will discuss how institutional policies and incentives drive research integrity, and how early career researchers can improve research culture.

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES

James Parry, Chief Executive, UK Research Integrity Office

James is the Chief Executive of the UK Research Integrity Office. Joining UKRIO in 2006, he took up his current role in 2008, overseeing UKRIO's transition to a registered charity supported by more that 100 research organisations. He directs UKRIO’s work programme and leads its advisory service, responding to queries and concerns about research practice from researchers and the public. He developed UKRIO’s core guidance publications, such as its Code of Practice for Research, which are used by many leading research organisations.

James works with UKRIO’s subscribers and the wider UK research community to provide them with tailored support on research practice. He regularly speaks on how to sustain and enhance research integrity; audiences have included the Royal Society, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Irish National Forum on Research Integrity, the UK Research Integrity Forum and the World Conference on Research Integrity.

James has collaborated in numerous initiatives to support research integrity. He has worked with the Royal Society and other bodies on initiatives to effect positive change to research culture, assisted with the revision of the UK Concordat to Support Research Integrity, revised policies and systems for research integrity and governance at many universities, and regularly delivers training and discussion sessions at UK research organisations.

Prior to joining UKRIO, James worked as an archaeologist and a university administrator.

Dr Irene Hames, UKRIO Advisory Board Member, and Independent advisor on research integrity, research publication and publication ethics

Dr Irene Hames is an independent advisor on research integrity, research publication and publication ethics, and has run many workshops in these areas for researchers at all career stages. Her experience in research communication and publication spans 40 years, including 20 years as the managing editor of a large scientific journal. Dealing with a wide range of ethical and integrity issues at journal level made Irene realise the importance of educating researchers in all aspects of research integrity and publication ethics.

Irene was a Council Member, Director and Trustee of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) 2010-13. During her time with COPE she originated the COPE Case Taxonomy, produced the original version of the COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers, and took on the role of Editor of its monthly newsletter, the COPE Digest: Publication Ethics in Practice.

She is the author of the book Peer Review and Manuscript Management in Scientific Journals, and in 2011 was the specialist advisor to the UK Parliament House of Commons Science and Technology Committee for its inquiry into peer review and the resulting report, Peer Review in Scientific Publications. In 2017, Irene was awarded the inaugural Publons Sentinel Award for outstanding advocacy, innovation or contribution to scholarly peer review.

Irene has held voluntary advisory roles with a number of organisations, including Sense About Science, the Royal Society of Biology (where she is a Fellow), and the International Society of Managing and Technical Editors (ISMTE), of which she was a founding Board member and Chair of the Ethics Committee.

Dr Jessica Butler, Analytical Lead/Research Fellow, University of Aberdeen

Dr Jessica Butler came to the University of Aberdeen to join the team at the Centre for Health Data Science. Before that she got her PhD and was a postdoc at the University of Massachusetts in bioinformatics.

At the Centre she is part of a great team studying NHS and government records to understand how to improve population health. Jessica is co-director and lead analyst for our Networked Data Lab with the Health Foundation. This five-site collaboration is improving NHS & government analytics and sharing the resulting software & data. Jessica is also on the NHS Grampian COVID Surveillance Team. As part of this work, she has made open-source tools to find coronavirus contact networks and areas of NHS Grampian most vulnerable to coronavirus.

Jessica is also passionate about improving research culture so scientists are rewarded for doing rigorous and useful science.

For further information on this event or future events at UKRIO please follow the UK Research Integrity website.