What is our policy regarding conflicts of interest?
We have established a conflict of interest policy that provides guidelines to avoid any conflicts of interest that may arise for editors, authors, and replicators.
Conflict of Interest Policy, Ethical Guidelines and Other Policies
The guidelines below are inspired by those advocated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and those currently in place at leading scientific journals.
Open Access: This website is Open Access. No fee is charged to view, download, or print.
Peer Review: This is not a journal. Reproductions, replications and senstivity analysis are not peer-reviewed.
Ownership and Management: The Institute for Replication was founded in 2022 by Abel Brodeur. The Institute for Replication is fully independent, and is not owned by any university or publishing house. The Insitute is managed by the Chair and the co-directors. The Institute does not accept advertisements and does not engage in marketing activities.
Authorship: Authorship should reflect the replicator's contribution to the reproduction or replication and to its reporting. Any individual who meets authorship criteria (that is, made a substantive contribution to the research) should be rewarded with authorship. Individuals who made less than a substantive contribution to the research should be listed in the acknowledgement footnote. Any form of guest, gift and ghost authorship is forbidden. Under COPE's definitions, a guest author is one who does not deserve authorship but is listed because of seniority or reputation; a gift author is one who does not deserve authorship but is listed as a favour or in return for payment; and a ghost author is one who deserves authorship but is not listed.
We recognize the rights for any individual who meets authorship criteria to reproduce or replicate anonymously.
Contribution: We strongly encourage authors to clearly state their contribution to the manuscript in the acknowledgement footnote, especially if one of the replicators’ identity remains anonymous. We recommend using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT - https://casrai.org/credit/).
Data and Code Sharing: The Institute for Replication strongly encourages transparency. It is compulsory for replicators to provide codes/programs and data (whenever legally possible) for reproducibility.
Research Involving Humans: Appropriate approval, registration or licensing should be obtained from the relevant ethical board (e.g., the Research Ethics Committee at the author's university) prior to any research that involves humans (or animals). This information should appear in the acknowledgment note. Steps should be taken to insure the confidentiality of sensitive data.
Conflict of Interest Policy for Editors
In what follows, the word Editor(s) applies to the Chair, Co-directors and Co-editors, and the word Replication refers to replication, reproduction and sensitivity analysis. A study co-authored by one of the Editors will be handled by another Editor who is not at the same institution. The other Editor will propose and contact replicator(s) and handle the communication with the original author(s). The Editor who has a conflict of interest will not have access to information or correspondence relating to the Replication.
If an Editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a Replication, they will declare it to the Chair, and the paper will be handled in the same way as described above.
An Editor will declare a conflict of interest when a paper is authored by an author whose relationship with this Editor might create the perception of bias (e.g., in terms of close friendship, conflict, or rivalry). Specifically, an Editor will declare a conflict of interest when a paper is authored by:
Role of Consulting Data Editors
In what follows, Consulting Data Editor(s) applies to individuals serving on the editorial board of an academic journal as a data editor or replication analyst. Consulting Data Editors are not supporting I4R on behalf of their respective journal(s) and association(s). They are also not supporting I4R in selecting or proposing names of replicators for articles that were published while they are or were in any editorial role at the article's journal. Their role is limited to what follows below.
Consulting Data Editors may provide the following information to the Chair or Co-directors for articles that they have reproduced:
Role of Reproducibility Analysts
In what follows, Reproducibility Analyst(s) applies to individuals NOT serving on the editorial board of an academic journal as a data editor or replication analyst. They support I4R by reproducing numerical results (tables and figures) reported in scientific publications.
Conflict of Interest Policy for Replicators
A replicator has a conflict of interest if one or more of the authors of the paper to be reproduced or replicated is a colleague at the same institution (department) or is a co-author of the replicator on other work. Conflict of interest also exists if the paper is authored by a family member, current or former student, or former doctoral thesis supervisor. Potential for conflict may also exist if the paper is authored by a close friendship or in the presence of conflict or rivalry.
In the event of potential conflict of interest, the replicator should explicitly state their relationship to the original author(s) in the acknowledgement footnote. Replicator(s) are not allowed to remain anonymous if there is a conflict of interest.
Replicators should disclose all sources of financial support for their research. All individuals should identify any interested party that provided financial or in-kind support in the form of consultancy fees, retainers, data access, etc. An interested party is an individual or organization that has a stake in the paper for financial, political or ideological reasons. All individuals should reveal any paid or unpaid positions in organizations whose financial interests or policy positions are relevant to the original paper. If the report is partly or wholly written under contract with an organization, this fact must be disclosed. The above information should be disclosed for every author. A short statement summarizing the information should be included in the acknowledgment footnote. If the replicator(s) decide to remain anonymous, they need to disclose all the above to the Chair or Co-directors.
Allegations of Research Misconduct
The Institute for Replication and its members strongly discourage any attempt at plagiarism by replicators and data falsification/fabrication, among others. If we detect such behavior, or are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a Replication, we shall follow COPE's guidelines in dealing with allegations.