The Embassy's Newsletter for July 2021
InstructionsThe Embassy's Newsletter for July 2021
Train-the-Trainer program in India
The certified VIRT2UE trainer Shivadas Sivasubramaniam, Head of Biomedical Forensic Sciences at Derby University, is planning to deliver a Train-the-Trainer program
at Kalasalingam Institute of Technology, in Krishnankoil (South India) by July-August. He will be able to expand the VIRT2UE program, from which he highlights that “the interactive nature of integrity-related issues makes the trainee understand and “own” ethical behaviour research integrity”. Besides, he received permission to offer training to all new starter Ph.D. students and researchers, as a mandatory session in his home institution. With this, he aims to promote the importance of researchers “owning” integrity. “Most Ph.D. scholars apply for the ethical approval just because it is expected from them. I want to change this culture into ethics forming the basis of research and its application”, Shivadas says. Now that he gained the VIRT2UE certification, he feels he has been recognized and given the authority to enhance future researchers in research integrity
Training Ph.D. students in Educational Sciences in Latvia
Zanda Rubene and Reinis Upenieks trained 26 Ph.D. students in Educational Sciences as a team at the University of Latvia. According to Zanda, running the VIRT2UE program in teams is good to share responsibilities and support each other. Besides, the two trainers highly recommend collecting feedback and evaluations from the trainees. In their particular case, the Ph.D. students declared to be very satisfied after the training and concluded that the session had answered many questions. Although the trainees’ favourite exercise was the “Dilemma Game”, Rubene found particularly useful the “Self-declaration” and plans to keep using the tool with doctoral students. Finally, Rubene highlights the importance of training Educational Sciences researchers, since “it is an area where research is about people, very often about children. This is very sensitive from an ethical point of view
