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Sheila Garrity, JD, MPH, MBA, began as director of the HHS Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in March. As our offices work closely together to address research misconduct in NIH-funded biomedical research, we recently took some time to sit down and chat to get to know her better and welcome her to this new role.
Ms. Garrity has many outstanding credentials, with over 30 years supporting research integrity efforts within academia and professional societies. She previously led research integrity and responsible conduct of research efforts at Johns Hopkins University, George Washington University, and the Association for Research Integrity Officers (where she was a founding member and first president). When discussing her philosophy, she says, “Research integrity, we cannot just put it into a little box; we have to put it into our daily lives.” I agree.
“We have a responsibility, institutions, those that do what we do, to train the next generation of researchers…People know to do the right thing. You look at fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. You’re basically telling people don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal.”
Sheila Garrity
Please join us for this brief conversation as we discuss:
- Her interest, vision, and priorities for supporting research integrity
- Working together to strengthen our educational efforts and other training resources
- Sharing data on managing allegations
- How emerging technologies may be used and when they may not (such as artificial intelligence during peer review)
- Reminders for recipients and researchers about their responsibilities
As a reminder, HHS ORI has the authority and the responsibility to review and monitor investigations of research misconduct allegations involving U.S. Public Health Service funding. When NIH receives an allegation of research misconduct, we review it and refer it to ORI as appropriate. More on NIH’s process for handling allegations is available on our Research Misconduct Overview webpage and also on ORI’s Handling Misconduct webpage.
Nice meeting you Sheila Garrity!
“ORI is not broken” LOL!!!!! Check out PubPeer (that’s only publications, forget about grant applications that are hidden from the ;public). Then, look at number of cases of research misconduct. Even if only 1% of the PubPeer comments qualify as misconduct, they still far exceed the number of misconduct cases brought by ORI.
There is a huge uproar when our judiciary accepts gifts or has cozy relationships with those that they sit judgement on, and rightly so. Similarly, jurors should have no relationship – personal, financial, professional – direct or indirect, with the parties they are charged with judging.
Now, compare how our judicial system works with how the peer review system works. If you don’t see a gaping difference you are either blind (figuratively), naive, in denial, or a beneficiary of the corruption, favoritism, and bias that pervades the peer review system in its current form. This is what the CSR, NIH, ORI need to devote their energies to.
Someone, and I don’t know if it comes under Ms Garrity’s new remit, needs to look into misconduct BY NIH employees. I’ve been asking for this for years, having been on the receiving end. There are clear power dynamics relating to grant money, and future grant money, relating to NIH staff and the scientists receiving grants. THAT POWER NEEDS TO BE KEPT IN CHECK, AS IT IS RIPE FOR ABUSE.