Abstract:
Background Research misconduct i.e. fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism is associated with individual, insti-
tutional, national, and global factors. Researchers’ perceptions of weak or non-existent institutional guidelines
on the prevention and management of research misconduct can encourage these practices. Few countries in Africa
have clear guidance on research misconduct. In Kenya, the capacity to prevent or manage research misconduct
in academic and research institutions has not been documented. The objective of this study was to explore the per-
ceptions of Kenyan research regulators on the occurrence of and institutional capacity to prevent or manage research
misconduct.
Methods Interviews with open-ended questions were conducted with 27 research regulators (chairs and secretar-
ies of ethics committees, research directors of academic and research institutions, and national regulatory bodies).
Among other questions, participants were asked: (1) How common is research misconduct in your view? (2) Does
your institution have the capacity to prevent research misconduct? (3) Does your institution have the capacity to manage
research misconduct? Their responses were audiotaped, transcribed, and coded using NVivo software. Deductive cod-
ing covered predefined themes including perceptions on occurrence, prevention detection, investigation, and man-
agement of research misconduct. Results are presented with illustrative quotes.
Results Respondents perceived research misconduct to be very common among students developing thesis reports.
Their responses suggested there was no dedicated capacity to prevent or manage research misconduct at the institu-
tional and national levels. There were no specific national guidelines on research misconduct. At the institutional level,
the only capacity/efforts mentioned were directed at reducing, detecting, and managing student plagiarism. There
was no direct mention of the capacity to manage fabrication and falsification or misconduct by faculty researchers.
We recommend the development of Kenya code of conduct or research integrity guidelines that would cover
misconduct.