Policies of biomedical preprint servers on conflicts of interest, authorship, and research integrity lacked important details

Abstract

Objectives: To assess the policies of biomedical preprint servers on the reporting of funding, conflict of interest (COI), author contributions, and research integrity. Study Design and Setting: We generated a list of potentially eligible preprint servers then judged their eligibility in duplicate and independently. Between July and September 2021, we extracted information from the websites of these servers in duplicate and independently and through a simulated submission. Results: We included 37 preprint servers. A variable percentage of these servers had policies for reporting of funding (43%), disclosure of COI (78%), specification of authors’ contributions (54%), and research integrity (76%). While 97% of the COI policies required authors to disclose their own interests, only 7% addressed interests related to family members. About a third of authors’ contribution policies (30%) did not specify the types of contributions to report. While a majority of research integrity polices described screening checks for plagiarism (71%), a minority described screening checks for fabrication (39%), falsification (36%), and image manipulation (32%). Conclusion: Less than half of biomedical preprint servers have policies on reporting on funding. Policies related to COI disclosure, reporting of author contributions, and research integrity lack important details. © 2022 Elsevier Inc.