Government fraud watchdogs have more than tripled the size of grants for studying the integrity of research, raising the stakes in a new and controversial area of study.

Last year's round of grants for research on research integrity was capped at a maximum of $100,000 per year for 2 years. This year, grants will cover as much as $750,000 in direct costs over 3 years, according to the request for applications posted last week by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) at the Department of Health and Human Services.

"We hope we'll be able to support more complicated research," said Mary Scheetz, ORI's research director. "A higher dollar value in the grants increases the possibility of getting heavy-hitting research."

The move comes as the first batch of ORI-funded studies move toward publication. A study of how institutions deal with researcher conflicts of interest, for example, is headed for the presses—at least one scholarly journal, according to study author Lisa Bero, a professor of clinical pharmacology and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco. Bero found, among other things, that a strict institutional policy on conflicts does not get in the way of research.

Current rules allow institutions to decide whether or not a financial connection between a researcher and her subject of study qualifies as a conflict, and, if it does, what to do about it. The range of options runs from requiring the researcher to quit the project and tell all up to and including doing nothing at all, and very quietly.

"The bottom line is that investigators complain (about strict conflict policies) but they don't want to do away with it," Bero says. "It certainly doesn't hinder anyone's research."

ORI's efforts to gather data on scientific fraud have hit a nerve at some professional organizations. The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) and Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) stood shoulder-to-shoulder last fall against an ORI survey meant to ascertain the size of the problem of research misconduct.

"We thought that would have been a high profile mischaracterization of what scientists were doing," said FASEB spokesperson Howard Garrison, adding, "We were very specific in our critique of a flawed research program. Otherwise, we wish them good luck on their research."

FASEB's dust-ups with ORI have become something of an annual event. In 2001, ORI wanted to boost protection for whistleblowers who report scientific misconduct. FASEB objected. In 2000, ORI wanted all staff connected with research to be trained in ethical rules. Again, FASEB said the government agency had gone too far.

"They are doing what they think is right for their members," ORI's Scheetz said. "There is this sense that we are nosing around in things we shouldn't. Once they see the published data from some of the studies, this will give them reassurance."

AAMC is already co-sponsoring ORI programs at various academic medical societies such as the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education and the Ambulatory Pediatric Association. Government agencies connected to nursing, drug addiction studies, and other disciplines also co-sponsor ethical studies with ORI.

FASEB is not alone in its sensitivity to scientific probes into research ethics. One institution that had originally agreed to participate in Bero's study later got cold feet, she said.

"They actually backed out," Bero said. "This is very challenging stuff."