Guidelines for research integrity across nations are acknowledging fairness, diversity, equity and inclusion. Yet a recent study finds that the concept of fairness is largely framed in procedural language—such as equitable authorship, peer-review practices and misconduct handling—while the deeper disparities influencing who performs research, whose expertise is valued and who determines standards are often overlooked. The authors warn that this oversight may perpetuate colonial power structures and deepen the exclusion of Indigenous peoples and scholars from the Global South, along with their epistemic and moral perspectives.
A Systematic Review of Global Guidelines
The conclusions were drawn after analysing 66 national and international guidelines and codes of conduct for research integrity originated from 39 countries in Europe, Africa, South America, North America, Asia and Oceania. The study, “Fairness in Research Integrity Guidelines Across the World: A Critical Discourse Analysis,” was published in the Journal of Academic Ethics on 2 September.
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Of the 39 national documents, 24 came from European countries, with the rest originating from Africa (2), South America (1), North America (1), Asia (9) and Oceania (2). The authors, Clàudia Pallisé Perelló, María de los Ángeles Crespo López, Natalie Evans, Johannes Ket, Mariëtte van den Hoven and Krishma Labib at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, say their study provides the “first systematic scoping review” of research integrity documents critically assessing the treatment of fairness.
It is also the first one that takes an explicit anticolonial and systemic justice perspective, putting structural inequalities in the centre of the analysis. Maura Hiney, an adjunct professor of Research Integrity at University College Dublin’s Institute for Discovery, in Ireland, said that the study is “very timely and will be an important consideration for the revision of the All European Academies (ALLEA) European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and the ongoing development of an African Code of Conduct for Research Integrity and AI.”
The findings also raise questions about how research systems maintain common expectations for reliability, transparency and accountability while allowing legitimate contextual, Indigenous and epistemic diversity. Lokman Meho, professor and university librarian at American University of Beirut in Lebanon and the developer of the Research Integrity Risk Index (RI²), said that greater fairness in funding, collaboration, authorship, and participation should help create better research but not become a separate goal that competes with research quality and integrity.
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Focus on Procedural Fairness
The majority of guidelines treat fairness as a “procedural” concept. This focus covers authorship, peer review, and misconduct. It often ignores the structural conditions of research. Many documents reference diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) with at least one of these words being mentioned in just under half of the documents, but their uses vary significantly in terms of depth and meaning. More than half of the documents either do not mention DEI or approach these in a more symbolic or superficial way, reflecting a more tokenistic or performative vision. In these cases, the word “diversity” often appears without further elaboration, concrete actions, or clear links to research practices.
Addressing Structural Injustice
Guidance documents rarely address structural injustices. The study finds that Global North documents often fail to acknowledge systemic injustice. They ignore colonial history and socioeconomic inequities. None of the documents explicitly mention the term “colonialism.” A small number discuss inequities in knowledge production in different countries, although they do not refer to these as colonial legacies or realities. Only a minority of the documents acknowledge the validity of diverse epistemic values and systems, with most instead promoting Global North knowledge systems.
