Reviewer response for version 1
This is an interesting manuscript which is somewhat outside my field of expertise, which is centred around molecular biology and genetics. 
There is no doubt that this will have limited my ability to provide a detailed critique of the arguments presented, and this may also limit the value of some of my suggestions. 
Nonetheless I advance these in the hope that my comments will indicate how this article was received by someone outside the field, given that this paper will interest a broad range of academics and researchers.
My main comments pertain to the taxonomy proposed in Table 1. 
I would not argue with the five epistemic responsibilities put forward; however, I did wonder whether five levels of taxonomy are required for any or all of the five proposed responsibilities. 
Some of the descriptions provided for levels I and II seem unlikely to occur in practice, and I could not always see clear distinctions between some levels proposed, most frequently for levels I and II.
For example, for “1. To foster research integrity”, I could not see a clear difference between “Issues of detrimental research practices and responsible conduct of research are neglected” (level I) and “Issues…. are occasionally addressed” (level II). 
There may not be much difference in practice between something being “neglected” or “occasionally addressed”, and it is also not clear how “occasionally” would be reliably measured. 
Similarly, I could not see a clear difference between level III “Detrimental research practices are addressed… but there is no academic climate that actively stimulates responsible conduct of research” and level IV “There is an academic climate that detects and acts upon detrimental research practices and actively stimulates responsible conduct of research, but only at the level of individual researchers”.
For “2. To teach for intellectual virtue”, I couldn’t see clear differences between level I “the university…. pays no attention to intellectual virtues” and level II “intellectual virtues are considered important, but not taught”. 
I also could not imagine any University that would fall into either of these categories.
Again, I couldn’t see clear differences for the proposed levels I and II for “3. To address the big questions of life”, ie these questions being “neglected” (level I), versus “mentioned but discarded” (level II).
For “4. To give humanistic inquiry and education a proper place”, I also saw no real distinction between the humanities being “marginalized” (level I) and “not marginalized but considered and treated as being inferior” (level II). 
Levels III, IV, and V commonly refer to humanities being given a “proper place” in the university, but this definition will naturally vary between universities according to their type, i.e. technical universities versus universities with a strong and stated focus upon the humanities. 
Some wording within levels III-V also lacked definition, i.e. “in isolation” (level III), “some other disciplines” (level IV), and “across disciplines” (level V). 
“Disciplines” can be defined quite narrowly by some universities, so working with other disciplines or across disciplines does not always imply working between the humanities and the sciences.
Finally, for “5. To serve society”, universities where “research and teaching are confined to …purely academic challenges” (level I) could argue that they are serving society in this way, possibly by pursuing academic challenges that can indirectly linked to the big questions of life. 
It also seems unlikely that any university would be defined by level II “Research and teaching identify societal challenges, but the university leaves it to others to confer knowledge … relevant to those challenges”.
Are all factual statements correct and adequately supported by citations?
- Contemporary challenges such as hypercompetition, publication pressures, marginalisation of the humanities and commercialization of universities (page 3, paragraph 2) should be supported by references.
- The status of reference 1 (footnote 1) which is a manuscript by Peels et al, could be updated (page 3).
Are arguments sufficiently supported by evidence from the published literature?
Although the manuscript states that “more transparency and specifically pre-registration of study protocols and data analysis plans will lead to considerable improvements (in the use of small sample sizes, selective reporting and other questionable research practices, from the preceding sentence), this seems to be somewhat of an overstatement. 
Firstly, more transparency and pre-registration may not impact on the use of small sample sizes, as these might represent feasibility constraints that pre-registration may not overcome. 
Secondly, I understand that there is not yet a substantial body of literature that describes the possible benefits and/or drawbacks of study pre-registration, by comparing the results and outcomes of pre-registered studies versus comparable studies that lacked pre-registration.
Finally, the manuscript states that (the big questions of life) “are too important to be left entirely to non-academics”. 
This statement could be written in a more inclusive way, for example by indicating that as these questions are so important, they are everyone’s concern, including the concern of academics.
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