We invite you to take part in the questionnaire focusing on questionable research practices in biomedical research in 10 Eastern-European countries.
The current study is led by the University of Tartu (EST) and is carried out in the partner organisations of the Alliance4Life_Bridge Project. The study aims to map out the attitudes, experiences and practices of researchers working at Alliance4Life_Bridge project partner organisations. The findings will help us in introducing, supporting and improving research integrity practices primarily in the partner organisations, and such findings will also contribute to the training and educational programmes on research ethics and integrity, already existing or to be developed at the partner organisations of the Alliance4Life_Bridge Project.
The target group of the study are biomedical researchers working at the partner organisations, irrespective of the type of the organisation (private, public, higher education institution, university of applied sciences), whose workload includes research at a minimum rate of 20%. We are planning to involve approximately 300 researchers per consortium.
The questionnaire will take approximately 20 to 30 minutes to complete. Participating in the study is strictly voluntary, which means that you may stop answering the questions at any moment without providing any reasons for your decision, and without any adverse consequences for you. While contemplating your participation, please note that IP addresses are not logged during the survey; consequently, if you decide to quit at a certain point, your answers provided up to that point will be deleted from the system. If you intend your answers to be logged, please complete the questionnaire without any interruption.
This survey will not ask for any personal and/or demographic data, such as the participant’s gender, job title, specialisation, etc., in order to avoid any possibility of accidental identification. In addition, we will not collect IP addresses and the answers to open questions will be anonymized before performing any data analysis, in case they include any sensitive personal data. The anonymization will be done by 31.12.2025. The data collected will be used and published only in a generalised form, in order to present the comprehensive results of the survey. The collected data will be stored in a secure server of the University of Tartu, with only the members of the project responsible for analysing the data having access thereto. The responsible data processor is the University of Tartu, and partner organisations will have access to the aggregated data after the survey is completed.
As a result of the survey a public report will be published on the website of the Alliance4Life_Bridge Project, mapping out the researchers’ attitudes, potential problems, and identifying certain recommendations for the solutions concerning research integrity issues.
Thank you for considering your participation in the survey. Each completed questionnaire is valuable, and will help us in better understanding which factors support and which factors hinder biomedical researchers in conforming to research integrity. If you have any questions pertaining to the research, please contact the principal investigator Mari-Liisa Parder, mari-liisa.parder@ut.ee, Jakobi 2, Tartu, Estonia, +372 5903 6319.
If you have any questions about compliance about data protection you may contact data protection officer at the University of Tartu: andmekaitse@ut.ee
The research has been approved by the research ethics committee of the lead partner, the University of Tartu (UT REC approval no 401/T-16). In addition, all the partner organisations have either acquired local approval for the activity, or official statement, that this kind of research does not need ethics committee approval in the country.
The questionnaire will be available online from 25.08 to 31.12.2025.
This research is financed by the European Commission under Project Alliance4Life_Bridge (Grant No: 101136453).