Teaching grey zone research? Reversed causalities of doctoral integrity training

Research integrity has become an issue of international concern, sparked by occasional yet highly publicised scandals of research malpractice and questions about how to assure the quality and trustworthiness of research. A plethora of policies and guidelines has been produced, and the EU and many countries have developed national codes, which are currently being brought into practice. Instead of following the official policy narrative about a culture of scandal and malpractice that goes before -and legitimise- actions to preserve integrity, I take a poststructuralist approach to exploring the possibility of a ‘reversed causality’ in which these actions may also play role in normalising the scandals and malpractice that they were originally conceived to prevent. That is, I do not question that scandals and malpractice occur, and that the trustworthiness of research is a matter of high concern for all levels of society. To overview the wider, and perhaps unforeseen, consequences of this apparently positive concern with scandal and malpractice, a poststructuralist ethnography that questions and explores the extent to which the as it is currently enacted at the universities may also serve to normalise its occurrence is, however, still needed.