Promoting Scientific Integrity through Open Science in Health Psychology : Results of the Synergy Expert Meeting of the European Health Psychology Society

Abstract

The current article describes a position statement and recommendations for actions that need to be taken to develop best practices for promoting scientific integrity through open science in health psychology endorsed at a Synergy Expert Group Meeting. Sixteen Synergy Meeting participants specializing in health, social and behavioural psychology convened to discuss priority issues regarding scientific integrity promotion and open science in health psychology. The group developed a set of recommendations for researchers, gatekeepers, and research end-users. The group process followed a nominal group technique and voting system to elicit and decide on the most relevant and topical issues. Seventeen priority areas were listed and voted on, 15 of them were endorsed by the group (5, 6 and 4 from each area). Each of the issues was considered by the group and formed the basis of this position statement. Specifically, the following priority actions for health psychology were endorsed: (1) for researchers: advancing when and how to make data open and accessible at various research stages and understanding researchers’ beliefs and attitudes regarding open data; (2) for educators: integrating open science in research curricula, e.g., through online open science training modules, promoting preregistration, transparent reporting, open data and applying open science as a learning tool; (3) for journal editors: providing an open science statement, and open data policies, including a minimal requirements submission checklist. Health psychology societies and journal editors should collaborate in order to develop a coordinated plan for research integrity and open science promotion across behavioural disciplines.