Contextualizing the emerging and contested role of sleuths in the science monitoring system: filling a gap or disrupting the process?

In light of persistent challenges to the quality and integrity of the research record, new practices of monitoring research are emerging in the form of scientific sleuthing. While quickly developing into a sizeable community of actors that is prominently engaging in scientific quality control, the role of scientific sleuths is both contested and poorly conceptualised. This paper addresses this by positioning sleuths in the context of institutionalised actors involved in the research monitoring process, including peer reviewers, research integrity officers and science journalists. It argues that while sleuths share characteristics with each of these roles, they nevertheless form a distinct class of actors, most importantly because of the absence of formal structures of accountability. This has triggered comparisons of scientific sleuthing to vigilantism. We explore the extent to which sleuthing practices resemble acts of digital vigilantism and discuss implications for sleuths’ ability to uphold the quality and integrity of the research literature.