For WVU ethics officer, research integrity is a question of values

Trisha Phillips is a scholar of research norms and standards — guidelines promoting the responsible conduct of research. As the WVU Research Integrity Officer, she helps grant-funded research teams develop individualized plans for educating everyone involved on responsible research. (WVU Photo/Jennifer Shephard)

In June, research ethicist Trisha Phillips held a training session with a group of West Virginia University students.

“I asked what they’d learned from the reading,” Phillips recalled. “One student raised their hand and said, ‘I hadn’t understood that there are authorship standards and norms,’ such as guidelines determining the order in which names of authors of an academic paper are listed.

“The student thought that was entirely up to their advisor. For them to know there are standardized practices was empowering. It helped them understand how research is done, what it means to be listed as an author.”

That’s what it’s all about for Phillips. As a scholar, she focuses on research misconduct and norms or best practices, and she teaches political science at the WVU Eberly College of Arts and Sciences. In her role at the WVU Research Office, Phillips promotes research integrity at the University.

“Best practices in research can impact the quality of the work, the experience of the people engaged in the work and the effect the work will have on people who are reading, supporting, potentially trusting it,” she said.

Phillips pointed to recent MDMA research that illustrates the importance of responsible research practices.

“MDMA, also called ‘ecstasy’ or ‘molly,’ is a psychedelic that in several years’ worth of clinical trials has shown a lot of promise for treating PTSD,” she said. “The results of those trials were recently submitted to the FDA for approval — but a number of ethical issues were raised about bias, human-subject protections and funding, and ultimately an advisory committee recommended the FDA deny approval. It’s an interesting real-world story about the possible repercussions of irresponsible research practices. And it’s sad, because if MDMA is indeed effective, then people’s access to a valuable treatment is now delayed.”

A native of Eugene, Oregon who’s an avid outdoor adventurer, Phillips originally specialized in the ethics of medical research, and particularly in questions of exploitation and coercion. Over the past 15 years, however, her interests have extended to broader issues of research conduct and social responsibility.

Trisha Phillips, research integrity officer, WVU (WVU Photo/Jennifer Shephard)

According to Phillips, unethical research environments can impede the quality of the work that happens there.

“In unhealthy labs or toxic research groups where there’s inappropriate mentoring and supervision, students don’t feel supported in voicing concerns or suggestions about alternative approaches to the work. That harms the work intrinsically. Those spaces miss opportunities for different perspectives, for catching mistakes, for directing inquiry in other and perhaps more fruitful ways. We all benefit from research environments where people feel safe and respected. It simply contributes to better research.”

This spring, Phillips spearheaded a Research Office initiative to transform WVU compliance with grant-givers’ guidelines for research ethics training.

Currently, she explained, federal funders such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and National Science Foundation require that funded personnel are trained on the responsible conduct of research but allow a one-size-fits-all approach, in which every researcher at an institution can receive the same training, regardless of career stage or discipline. But that’s not the path Phillips is forging for WVU.

“The nature of compliance mandates around ethics education creates a culture in which people think about responsible conduct of research as a box on a training checklist they have to complete,” Phillips said. “And the one-size-fits-all approach typically results in a poor fit for everybody. That trivializes the entire thing, risks undermining its importance and makes it less meaningful.”

Under the new compliance model, she collaborates with the principal investigator of every grant-funded research project that comes across her desk, devising an individualized responsible research conduct training plan for everyone involved — one that makes sense for each researcher’s career level and discipline.

Phillips said she believes that’s the way to ensure ethics compliance is useful and meaningful to researchers.

“It’s important to learn how to practice research responsibly, to know the expectations and norms. That’s why we call it ‘the responsible conduct of research,’ because it involves responsibilities to the research, responsibilities to the research record, responsibilities to do your work well and with integrity.

“It also involves obligations to other people, other researchers. If a person does their work irresponsibly, they may wrong their colleagues — their contemporaneous colleagues and future colleagues trying to build on their work. And researchers have obligations to society, to people who aren’t researchers but consume or fund or otherwise support their work.”

The researchers attending Phillips’ trainings on responsible research are sometimes surprised to realize there’s no list of specific rules to memorize. Research ethics is bigger than that, she tells them.

“It’s about expectations, norms and treating other people with respect. It’s about not wronging or excluding people. It’s about the values that guide research inquiry, and helping people understand and appreciate how the complex world of values in research should guide their behavior.”

-WVU-

mm/8/19/24

MEDIA CONTACT: Micaela Morrissette
Research Writer
WVU Research Communications
304-709-6667; Micaela.Morrissette@mail.wvu.edu