Pandemic publishing: rethinking editorial ethics during COVID

Pandemic publishing: rethinking editorial ethics during COVID

Researchers need to observe ethical standards during a pandemic, say Ben Kasstan (University of Bristol), Rishita Nandagiri (LSE) and Siyane Aniley (Addis Ababa University), and journals should hold them to these standards.

The pandemic has changed academic research. It has led to gender gaps in authorship, questions about the quality of scientific publishing, and shifts in peer review processes. As the effects — short and long term — of the pandemic continue, more research will be produced under pandemic-shaped conditions and submitted for publication.

Himani Bhakuni and Seye Abimbola argue that authorship, research partnerships, and editorial practices in global health — the bread and butter of academic research, writing, and publishing — are ‘peppered with epistemic wrongs that lead to or exacerbate epistemic injustice’. These epistemic injustices play out in a number of ways, including credibility deficit, questionable research practices, and editorial racism. Ethical shortfalls in the increasingly marketised academic publishing industry are not new, but risk being compounded by the pandemic.

Pandemic publishing: rethinking editorial ethics during COVID