New Directions in Research Integrity: Values to Value in Research and Publishing

Duration: 1 hr 2 mins
Publication Date: 2023 | October

About the session

Values including objectivity, respect for participants, reliability and reproducibility, and transparency have guided standards for research in the sciences and humanities, and publication in scholarly literature. Notwithstanding these efforts, substantial disparities persist regarding who is included in research, how broadly findings may be generalized to all in society as opposed to those included in sufficient numbers to power research, and how using existing research data in rapidly evolving algorithms and other forms of augmented intelligence will affect equity and social justice.

Articulating the values at stake in the research enterprise and explicitly attending to these considerations in scholarly publishing—from the point of solicitation of submissions to post-publication engagement—has the potential to enhance both the impact of research and its applicability across an increasingly diverse population. These considerations are especially critical now amidst the explosion of innovative technology and machine learning, rapid scientific advances, and the rapidly changing health care ecosystem more broadly.

This talk will start a conversation in what we value, and how those values will define our commitment to the integrity of the research-to-publication-to-engagement-research cycle.

Collection

New Directions (2023)

Speaker

Director of the Center for Bioethics and the Director of the Master of Science in Bioethics Program, Harvard Medical School

Rebecca Weintraub Brendel is Director of the Center for Bioethics and the Master of Bioethics Program at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Dr. Brendel practices clinical and forensic psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, where she is Director of Law and Ethics at the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior. She is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Global Health and Social Medicine at HMS. She previously served as Medical Director of the One Fund Center for Boston Marathon bombing survivors at MGH and Clinical Director of the Red Sox Foundation and MGH Home Base Program for returning veterans and their families. Dr. Brendel is also admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. Dr. Brendel received her BA in philosophy with distinction from Yale and medical and law degrees with honors from the University of Chicago. She completed psychiatry and forensic psychiatry training at MGH-McLean. Dr. Brendel works at the intersection of psychiatry, medicine, law, and ethics and is a past president of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (2018-2019) and the American Psychiatric Association (2022-2023). She has served on ethics committees of the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, and the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry (ACLP), and chaired the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Ethics Committee and Massachusetts Medical Society Committee on Ethics, Grievances, and Professional Standards. She is currently in her fifth of a seven-year appointment to the American Medical Association Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs (CEJA).