What is this about? (Is About)
From The Embassy of Good Science
A short summary providing some details about the theme/resource (max. 75 words)
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Codul General de Etică în Cercetarea Științifică - General code of ethics in scientific research (2015) +
Codul General de Etică în Cercetarea Științifică - General code of ethics in scientific research (2015) is a national framework authored by nan, in romanian, targeting nan. Originating from Romania, it aims to formalise principles of research integrity and open practice. It emphasises honesty, accountability, professional courtesy, and stewardship of resources, linking these values to reproducibility, credibility, and societal trust in research. The text covers responsibilities of researchers, institutions, funders, and journals, spelling out expectations for good practice in planning, conducting, publishing, and reviewing research. Common provisions include clear authorship criteria, proper citation and acknowledgement, management of conflicts of interest, transparency of methods and data, responsible supervision, and fair peer review. It also establishes procedures for handling breaches of integrity, defining misconduct, and setting up investigation mechanisms that ensure due process, proportional sanctions, and learning opportunities. By aligning with international standards, it connects local policy to global norms, reinforcing mobility of researchers and comparability of practices across borders. The document integrates the principle of education—training for students and staff on responsible conduct—ensuring that integrity is taught as a core skill rather than assumed knowledge. It also incorporates guidance on emerging issues such as data management, digital tools, open science, and new forms of dissemination, embedding integrity in contemporary workflows. Practical tools often include checklists, codes of behaviour, reporting templates, and FAQs, translating high-level principles into day-to-day actions. The intended audience spans researchers, supervisors, institutions, and policymakers, all of whom need clarity on their roles in safeguarding the credibility of research. Equity and diversity appear as cross-cutting themes, recognising that integrity involves creating inclusive environments free from discrimination, harassment, or exploitation. Overall, the resource situates research integrity as both a personal commitment and an institutional responsibility, embedding it into the full research cycle from design to dissemination. Annexes may provide case studies, historical context, and references to international declarations such as Singapore or Montreal statements. Definitions and glossaries support consistent interpretation, and contact points or ombudsperson systems are described to lower barriers to reporting. These features help the resource serve not only as a policy but also as a practical handbook.
Because of structural imperatives that overemphasize the good of efficiency (number of publications, h-index), researchers may feel it is not possible to do justice to principles and values related to research integrity (e.g. taking time in order to improve the quality of one publication, rather than publishing as much as possible). In such a situation, a researcher experiences cognitive dissonance and moral distress. The psychological notion of cognitive dissonance refers to the mental discomfort experienced by someone who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values. The ethical concept of moral distress denotes the experience of a person who knows what is the right thing to do, but is (or feels) unable to act accordingly. +
A group of three scientists fails to agree on the interpretation of their findings. One of the three decides to publish separately, the other two decide to wait for the first researcher's article to be published.
During the course of the project, the first researcher who is in the midst of the publication process, leaves the university. By accident, a fax from the publishing journal is sent to the old university, so the other two scientists discover where the first scientists intends to publish. They contact the journal, argue the first scientists interpretation is wrong and offer the journal their alternative view. +
Collaborative Working Between Academia and Industry: An Educational Scenario by the EnTIRE project +
Members of The Embassy of Good Science have developed a set of eight scenarios for educational purposes and to stimulate strategic thinking about issues in research ethics and research integrity.
This scenario presents a hypothetical narrative concerning '''[https://zenodo.org/record/4063619#.X3cGT5NKjxQ collaborative working between academia and industry and the links with research integrity]'''.
It focuses on issues regarding:
*Conflicts of Interest between academia and industry;
*Data usage and data privacy;
*HARKing (Hypothesizing after the results are known);
*Preregistration of studies;
*Authorship criteria for academic publications;
*The duties of corresponding authors;
*Non-publication of results;
*Divergences in research integrity standards and processes between international collaborators.
It is interspersed with questions and resource suggestions that help guide researchers, research ethics committees ('RECs'), research integrity offices ('RIOs') and research administrators in their deliberations concerning the research integrity issues raised by the narrative. +
The main goal of this online training is to encourage researchers for collaborative research. It examines benefits and problems that researchers can encounter when collaborating with their colleagues. Apart from the foundation text, the module presents two case studies that explore concrete issues of collaborative research, section with questions and answers as well as resources related to this topic. +
Collaborative working is "the act of two or more people or organizations working together for a particular purpose". '"`UNIQ--ref-000001F9-QINU`"' Collaborative working can cover formal or informal ways to work together. Formal collaborations include research projects under specified research grants, informal collaborations include, for example, networks or alliances.'"`UNIQ--ref-000001FA-QINU`"' Collaborations can be permanent or last for a certain time period. Important for succesfull research collaborations is having good underlying principles providing the basis for agreements of collaborations.
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Columbia grad student faked data in study of socioeconomics and life experiences, says retraction notice +
This is a factual case of fake data and misleading conclusions in the field of socio-economics. +
These guidelines contain basic principles and standards for all peer-reviewers. They can be applied across disciplines. +
This document presents a guide for young researchers on the area of authorship, which many people agree is one of the more confused areas. It helps new researchers prevent and resolve authorship problems. In particular it provides:
*suggestions for good authorship practice that should reduce the incidence of such dilemmas,
*advice on what to do when authorship problems do arise, and
*a glossary of key concepts in authorship, with some reading lists and websites for those who wish to take this further.
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This study provides information on feasibility and acceptability of a new approach to community consultation and public disclosure (CC/PD) for a large-scale Exception From Informed Consent (EFIC) trial by encouraging community members in designing and conducting the strategies. The authors argue that this approach has demonstrated a feasible CC/PD plan. +
Een online Community of Practice omgeving die specifiek is ingericht is samen met anderen te werken aan je onderzoeksvaardigheden. In de Communityomgeving kun je op elk gewenst moment (mede)studenten in een besloten online omgeving uitnodigen om samen te werken, te leren, te discussiëren en te delen.
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This is a supplement to the Common Guidelines for Education Research and Development, by the US National Science Foundation. It begins with 'a brief overview of the central role of replication in the advancement of science, including definitions of key terminology for the purpose of establishing a common understanding of the concepts'. It also addresses 'the challenges and implications of planning and conducting reproducibility and replication studies within education'. +
A researcher informally acquires knowledge of unpublished research results that support her theory.
She is invited to conference at an institution where she hopes to work. Is she allowed to share the research results which are not her own? +
This study addresses the need to disclose potential conflict of interest regarding physician-industry relations in preclinical education. Authors consider that introducing the concept of disclosure to the first and second year medical students would improve transparency and lead to benefits in their training. +
Conflict of interests pertain to situations that involve a person or organization with multiple interests (personal, professional, financial…). Working towards one interest could involve conflict with others. Conflicts can be (1) financial or (2) non-financial.
1) Treating patients and working for a pharmaceutical company (or owning their shares) that produces medicine for the same group of patients is an example of financial conflict of interests. Be prescribing and promoting medicine that is produced by this pharmaceutical company, the treating doctor may receive some sort of direct financial comission or have the value of their shares increased.
2) Non-publication of negative results and zero relations and making biased hypotheses are among examples of non-financial conflict of interests.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000291-QINU`"' Researchers who hide their negative results (to make their data clean or their results more noteworthy), or hypothesise in a manner to yield their prefered results could be seen as examples of non-financial conflict of interests.
It is important to note that conflict of interest includes the potential for conflict as well, and these should always be reported.
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The Spanish Superior Research Council (CSIC), in addition to their general good conduct guidelines, have also made specific guidelines to deal with conflicts of interest. This document aims to increase awareness among researchers regarding actual and potential conflicts of interest, as well as to equip researchers and research institutions to address these conflicts. +
This is a factual case. +
Citizen science, according to the [https://www.ecsa.ngo/ European Citizen Science Association (ESCA)], is "an ‘umbrella’ term that describes a variety of ways in which the public participates in science. The main characteristics are that: (1) citizens are actively involved in research, in partnership or collaboration with scientists or professionals; and (2) there is a genuine outcome, such as new scientific knowledge, conservation action or policy change." +
This fictional case is about an infectious disease researcher who is conducting a survey with men who are HIV positive and sexually active with partners of both sexes. This research contains sensitive information and the community leaders of the research population are not pleased with its results. +
This research paper'"`UNIQ--ref-00000036-QINU`"' presents two hypothetical scenarios on how citizen's science can be prone to accusations of research integrity violations.
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