Street research market: dealing with scientific misconduct in Iran

BACKGROUND: Scientific misconduct is a prevalent phenomenon with many undesirable consequences. In Iran, no original research have been done about scientific fraud. So, this study aimed at describing a challenging research misconduct in Iran, its related causes, and the ways Iranian authorities deal with it. METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, through a two-year period, all the advertisements installed in the study sites were collected and the content analysis was performed. Semi-structured interviews were held with experts for discovering the causes of misconduct. Also, published issues were collected for review of the laws on confronting the fraud in Iran. RESULTS: The content analysis resulted in identifying four categories of misconduct issues: advertising approach, types of services, outcome guarantee, and justifying the academic credit. Besides, reviewing the related literature indicated that Iranian government and the responsible authorities have recently established serious penalties for dealing with scientific misconduct through legislation. CONCLUSIONS: This study revealed some misconduct in scientific activities which has persuaded the authorities to enforce strict rules to deal with it. The effectiveness of this legislation needs to be investigated in some further studies.