Coping with Publication Misconduct

COPE, the Committee on Publication Ethics, was founded in 1997 by a small group of concerned biomedical journal editors in the United Kingdom. Over twelve years it has grown to more than 5,000 members worldwide, with several major scientific publishers signing up all their journal editors. It meets quarterly when editors seek advice on handling suspected misconduct. COPE publishes a code of conduct for member editors, guidelines on good publication practice and other matters, and flowcharts on how to deal with common problems, and provides a unique database of over 500 individual cases. It is now expanding beyond biomedicine and grappling with new problems related to the advent of new styles of electronic publication.