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. 2025 Apr;32(3):417-438.
doi: 10.1080/08989621.2023.2287046. Epub 2023 Nov 30.

Factors related to the severity of research misconduct administrative actions: An analysis of office of research integrity case summaries from 1993 to 2023

Brandon Long  1 , Savannah Laux  2 , Benjamin Lemon  3 , Alexa Guarente  4 , Mark Davis  5 , Arturo Casadevall  6 , Ferric Fang  7 , Min Shi  8 , David B Resnik  9
Affiliations

Factors related to the severity of research misconduct administrative actions: An analysis of office of research integrity case summaries from 1993 to 2023

Brandon Long et al. Account Res. 2025 Apr.

Abstract

We extracted, coded, and analyzed data from 343 Office of Research Integrity (ORI) case summaries published in the Federal Register and other venues from May 1993 to July 2023 to test hypotheses concerning the relationship between the severity of ORI administrative actions and various demographic and institutional factors. We found that factors indicative of the severity of the respondent's misconduct or a pattern of misbehavior were associated with the severity of ORI administrative actions. Being required by ORI to retract or correct publications and aggravating factors, such as interfering with an investigation, were both positively associated with receiving a funding debarment and with receiving an administrative action longer than three years. Admitting one's guilt and being found to have committed plagiarism (only) were negatively associated with receiving a funding debarment but were neither positively nor negatively associated with receiving an administrative action longer than three years. Other factors, such as the respondent's race/ethnicity, gender, academic position, administrative position, or their institution's NIH funding level or extramural vs. intramural or foreign vs. US status, were neither positively nor negatively associated with the severity of administrative actions. Overall, our findings suggest that ORI has acted fairly when imposing administrative actions on respondents and has followed DHHS guidelines.

Keywords: Research misconduct; corrections; office of research integrity; punishment; retractions.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Disclosure

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose. ORI had no role in designing this research project, analyzing or interpreting data, or writing the manuscript.

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