Governance & standards

Speaking up, whistleblowing and scientific misconduct.

IAMRegen provides safe routes for people to raise genuine concerns about risk, wrongdoing or scientific misconduct, and prohibits retaliation against anyone who does so. A named Speaking-Up Contact, independent of the subject of the concern, sits alongside activity leads, trustees and external regulators as available routes. Scientific-misconduct allegations are handled through a defined evidence-securing and independent-assessment process that respects the primacy of employers, institutions, journals and regulators.

Publication candidate — pending trustee adoption. This document is a complete operating proposal, not yet effective policy. It takes effect only when adopted by recorded resolution of the MSK REGEN trustees. It is not legal advice, regulatory accreditation, or a substitute for local clinical, research, employment or institutional governance.

Matters that may be raised

Concerns that may be raised include:

  • risk to a patient, participant, vulnerable person or the public;
  • fraud, bribery, theft, sanctions breach, improper private benefit or misuse of charity assets;
  • serious data-protection, cybersecurity, health-and-safety or regulatory failure;
  • fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, unethical research, authorship manipulation, undisclosed conflicts, peer-review interference or suppression of material findings;
  • concealment of wrongdoing, retaliation or deliberate failure to report a serious incident.

Routes and protection

A concern may be raised with the person’s activity lead, the Speaking-Up Contact, a trustee or a published protected address; if those routes are implicated or unsafe, the person may approach an appropriate regulator, professional body, employer, police or safeguarding authority.

IAMRegen prohibits retaliation against a person who raises a genuine concern or assists an investigation; deliberately false or malicious allegations may be misconduct, but an unsubstantiated good-faith concern is not. Identity is restricted as far as reasonably possible but cannot be guaranteed, and the policy does not limit statutory whistleblowing rights.

Scientific-misconduct response

A suspected-misconduct allegation follows a defined sequence:

  • secure relevant data, manuscripts, review records, declarations and audit trails without altering originals;
  • appoint an independent, technically competent and unconflicted preliminary assessor;
  • determine whether the allegation is within IAMRegen’s control and whether the employer/institution, research sponsor, ethics body, journal or regulator should lead or be notified;
  • separate honest error and scientific disagreement from possible misconduct; assess intent, recklessness, materiality and impact on the record;
  • take correction, expression-of-concern, retraction-request, status, conduct and external-reporting action as appropriate.

Limits of IAMRegen’s role

IAMRegen must not promise that it can determine matters properly belonging to an employer, university, healthcare institution, journal or regulator; it cooperates lawfully and protects the integrity of its own outputs and decisions.

References
  • COPE — Core Practices
  • Charity Commission — Reporting a serious incident
  • ICMJE — Conflicts of interest
Conflicts of interest: the owning organisation and named post-holders declare relevant interests in the public conflicts-of-interest register. Questions and complaints: [email protected].