A BMJ/COPE high level meeting in London on 12 January 2012 agreed the following statement:

• This meeting believes that the UK’s mechanisms for ensuring good research conduct and investigating research misconduct need to be strengthened

• Research misconduct is defined as behaviour by a researcher, intentional or not, that falls short of good ethical and scientific standards (Edinburgh 1999). Research misconduct includes fabrication, falsification, suppression, or inappropriate manipulation of data; inappropriate image manipulation; plagiarism; misleading reporting; redundant publication; authorship malpractice such as guest or ghost authorship; failure to disclose funding sources or competing interests; misreporting of funder involvement; and unethical research (for example, failure to obtain adequate patient consent). Research misconduct is important as it wastes resources, damages the credibility of science, and can cause harm (for example, to patients and the public)

• Primary …