Over the past year, COPE has been busy evaluating what our priorities should be for the next three years. Collaboration is critical to COPE in all aspects of our work and to inform COPE’s strategy we gathered insights through a member survey, telephone interviews with people working with non-traditional publishing models, workshops with Trustees and Council Members, insights from conversations with our collaborative partnerships, and market research.
What we hear from the community is that education, guidance and support on best practice in publication ethics is seen as an important role for COPE to continue to deliver, and to extend this to publishing models which bring unique ethical challenges such as special issues and preprints. Increasing our work with universities and research institutes is also seen as integral to supporting the integrity of the publication process.
Some of the challenges that have been raised include the need for more guidance in fast moving areas in research and publishing such as AI and micro-publishing. Trust in the integrity of the publication process is also key, and more support to counter the impact of systematic manipulation of the publication process (eg. paper mills) as well as at an individual journal level would be welcomed. Additionally, we heard that cultural and regional differences in publication and research ethics need to be better supported to reduce the inequities in the process.
As we near to finalising the next strategic plan, with our final piece of work being conducted with Trustees, Council Members and the COPE team at our upcoming annual retreat in June, we can give you early insight of the four key areas that we will be focusing on over the next three years: integrity; education; collaboration; and diversity, equity, inclusivity and accessibility.
We are excited by the ambitious plans that we have for these four priorities and look forward to letting you know more after our retreat in June. Over the past year, COPE has been busy evaluating what our priorities should be for the next three years. Collaboration is critical to COPE in all aspects of our work and to inform COPE’s strategy we gathered insights through a member survey, telephone interviews with people working with non-traditional publishing models, workshops with Trustees and Council Members, insights from conversations with our collaborative partnerships, and market research.
What we hear from the community is that education, guidance and support on best practice in publication ethics is seen as an important role for COPE to continue to deliver, and to extend this to publishing models which bring unique ethical challenges such as special issues and preprints. Increasing our work with universities and research institutes is also seen as integral to supporting the integrity of the publication process.
Some of the challenges that have been raised include the need for more guidance in fast moving areas in research and publishing such as AI and micro-publishing. Trust in the integrity of the publication process is also key, and more support to counter the impact of systematic manipulation of the publication process (eg. paper mills) as well as at an individual journal level would be welcomed. Additionally, we heard that cultural and regional differences in publication and research ethics need to be better supported to reduce the inequities in the process.
As we near to finalising the next strategic plan, with our final piece of work being conducted with Trustees, Council Members and the COPE team at our upcoming annual retreat in June, we can give you early insight of the four key areas that we will be focusing on over the next three years: integrity; education; collaboration; and diversity, equity, inclusivity and accessibility.
We are excited by the ambitious plans that we have for these four priorities and look forward to letting you know more after our retreat in June.
COPE Digest newsletter: April 2024
The April Digest newsletter began with this letter and followed with news about updated guidance, events and news.
Find out more about the ethical considerations of using and maintaining watchlists in our summary of the recent COPE Forum topic discussion and read new cases, submitted by COPE Members, with advice from the Forum. The flowchart "What to consider when asked to peer review a manuscript" has been updated to include recommendations around AI, potential conflicts of interest, and mentoring opportunities.