Our investigation into paper published and retracted in Qualitative Research
By Bob Howard - Executive Vice President, Research at SAGE Publishing
In April of this year, a Note “I am not alone – we are all alone: Using masturbation as an ethnographic method in research on shota subculture in Japan” by Karl Andersson, was published in the SAGE journal Qualitative Research. Together with the editors of the journal, in August, we made the decision to remove and then retract the Note. Full removal of a work published in an academic journal is extremely rare and our decision to take this course of action reflects the harm caused by its publication, compounded by ethical issues surrounding the conception and design of the Note.
As a publisher, we have a responsibility to uphold editorial independence and enable legitimate free expression supported by academic rigor. We also play an important role in maintaining best practice and editorial accountability. It is clear in this case that we fell short in our responsibilities to our readers and the wider research community, and we are working to learn lessons from this case. We apologize for our role in enabling this work to be published. The journal editors have also apologized and acknowledged the harm caused.
We have been conducting an internal investigation to understand how the work came to be published and to identify ways to prevent something like this from happening again. While the investigation is ongoing, we want to be transparent about where we have come to, what we are doing next, and the fundamental questions we are considering along the way.
What happened?
The publishing process for this Note was, according to existing guidelines, sound. All steps were followed, appropriate peer review was sought and received from independent experts, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines were followed, and the journal retained editorial independence. Despite this, the paper caused widespread harm. So, what went wrong? And how can we, as the publisher, prevent this from happening again while assuring the independence of our journal editors?
This case highlights the need to review how we deal with research that covers topics that have the potential to do harm, including research that involves illegal activities, even if those activities are only illegal within certain jurisdictions. Such research topics and methods require additional ethical and legal scrutiny prior to publication. As a publisher, we have a responsibility to prevent social harm from the works we publish and in this case our processes clearly fell short.
The investigation and decision to retract
If concerns are raised about a published paper, an investigation needs to be conducted thoroughly, with the aim of taking necessary corrective action while protecting the integrity of the academic record. It involves material consideration of the paper, the peer review process, and the decision-making process. It naturally also requires asking questions of the author. In this particular case, the original reviewers, who are both highly regarded experts with methodological and substantive expertise, were contacted for comment. Those reviewers maintained that the paper fits the scope of Notes and is a piece of emic research using experimental methods and therefore has value for its methodological contribution. They understood that the subject is controversial but argued that this is a proper subject for academic debate, suggesting that the journal is where this debate should be located. The editors needed to factor these views, whether they agreed or not, into their deliberations.
Soon after learning about the concerns related to the paper, the editors asked SAGE to take it down in order to allow a thorough investigation before a final decision was made. Neither COPE guidelines nor our own internal guidance accounted for the unprecedented nature of removing a paper for such a case and, as the publisher, we took a few days to determine the best approach. We ultimately agreed with the editors that removal was the best option while the editors made a final decision about retraction. Should future similar incidents arise, we have a new process in place to consider this option more efficiently.
Our next steps
The first step we are looking into is how we might identify sensitive and especially potentially problematic research at the point of submission. By flagging topics that are sensitive and have the potential for social harm, we will be in a better position to advise and guide our editors long before a paper is accepted. We are already exploring ways to do this, including technology options that can support the work of editors and editorial boards.
The second step we are taking is to review the ethical requirements across all article types at the point of submission, for this and all SAGE journals. The current policy for Qualitative Research is that article submissions are given scrutiny by the Editor-in-Chief when they come in, which includes ethical considerations, fit to the journal, suitability, and academic merit. The Editor-in-Chief then assigns them to an editor. Notes and Book Reviews go directly to an editor – there is no scrutiny prior to assignment. The journal is planning to extend this extra level of scrutiny before assignment to all submission types. More broadly, ensuring the requirement for ethics statements across all types of publications in the journal will help to provide additional checks and balances.
We are aware of calls for the editors to resign. As the publisher, we do not believe that it is our position to remove the editors if, as happened in this case, journal policies have been followed and the peer reviewers supported publication. The independence of our editors, experts in their fields of study, to select and publish content in their journals is something we firmly uphold as a critical part of enabling robust knowledge production. It is our responsibility to safeguard the editorial independence of our journals, which means that editorial decisions — as well as concerns related to them — must be handled within the journal’s existing editorial structures. At the same time, we are committed to working with our editors to identify and rectify errors, uphold the integrity of the scholarly record, and continuously improve guidelines for best practice.
Rare cases such as this provide the opportunity for us to rigorously review our existing processes and improve them for the future. This case exposes the nuances involved across different forms of research in terms of methodology, publication types, and subject matter — as well as the role that we all play to ensure that harmful research is not published.
We take our research ethics responsibility extremely seriously and have expanded our team that works on research integrity. This team will continue to scrutinize the guidance and support that we provide to authors, reviewers, and editors, as well as the workflow we have established across our journals. We welcome feedback throughout this process and will provide updates as we make further changes on the SAGE Perspectives Blog.