Semantic search

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) of Australia has various codes and policies on responsible research. The page contains an overview of the following codes and guidelines:

• The Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research
• The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research
• The Australian Code for the care and use of animals for scientific purposes
• The NHMRC Research Integrity and Misconduct Policy
• Factsheets on reporting research misconduct
• Information on the Australian Research Integrity Committee

This is a factual case describing how an immunologist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Luk Van Parijs, was found to be solely responsible for more than 11 incidents of data fabrication in grant applications and papers submitted between 1997 and 2004. '"`UNIQ--ref-000001EB-QINU`"'

Van Parijs avoided jail after several prominent scientists wrote letters begging for clemency on his behalf and was sentenced to home detention, community service and financial restitution.'"`UNIQ--ref-000001EC-QINU`"' '"`UNIQ--references-000001ED-QINU`"'

The Responsible Conduct of Research Framework describes policies and requirements related to applying for and managing funds from three Canadian Agencies (the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)). Requirements related to performing research, disseminating results, and the processes that institutions and agencies must follow in the event of an allegation of a breach of policy are also outlined.

Three cases are presented. Are these cases Research Misconduct, Questionable Research Practices or Responsible Conduct of Research? Participants are asked for their normative judgement, after which a discussion takes place. At the end of the case, it is explained what was decided in the real case.

The moderator asks the participants not only to make their normative judgement, but also to think about why. Which norms and values are at stake? On which norms and values did you base your judgement? Which values are in conflict and which are more important to you?

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 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.

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.

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.

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 case concerns the 2013 book publication of ‘’the Tyranny of the Weak’, published by a professor on the history of North Korea. In the book the author presents his historical research on how North Korea ‘survived’ the Cold War.

In 2014 another historian noticed several irregularities in the sources of the work of the professor and started investigating these irregularities. Many of these sources referred to archives, and were written in Russian, German, Chinese or Korean. The other historian decided to visit one of the archives in person to check the original sources. He states “[I checked] the collection there to reconstruct the original archival locations (…). This way it could be fully verified that the vast majority of the Russian archival citations from 1957-60 were invalid, because the cited files could not be found either in the Seoul collection or in the (essentially identical) Wilson Center collection.”

Upon this discovery, he also reached out to an archive in Berlin, where most sources could also not be located, or contained different information as suggested in the book. In addition, as the historian points out on Retractionwatch, several uncanny similarities appear to exist between "Tyranny of the Weak" and his own book on a similar topic.

The pofessor and book author, replied stating that “[t]he book was reviewed by two expert external reviewers before publication. In addition, before the book was published three years ago I shared the entire manuscript with one of the scholars who is currently critical of the book and is a renowned expert on the Russian sources on North Korea. At that time, this scholar did not find any problem with my use of sources, although he made a number of other comments which I incorporated in the final version of the book.” In 2015 the book earned 52 corrections in the new publication.

This is a hypothetical scenario of a junior researcher who discovers gaps between previously kept records of lab data and what has been published. The scenario poses the question of whether the student researcher should report these inconsistencies or not, and how should he proceed.

The American Society of Physics poses the following question and encourages critical discussion: 'Is this really a case of misconduct in handling data and record keeping? Or, is it the result of an honest mistake?' Several alternative scenarios of why such inconsistencies can occur are discussed.

A paper was submitted to our journal. The managing editor was concerned about patient information in the paper and queried the authors. The authors responded that the data were collected from routine samples and so consent was never obtained. The patients were lost to follow-up, and there was no ethics committee approval as it involved the study of existing data, but they did discuss with the institutional review board who said it was exempt.

The cohort was 2500 patients, all with one syndrome, in one hospital. The paper contains two tables that display data from 12 patients: sex, age, presenting symptom, as well as laboratory parameters and outcome.

A journal received an enquiry from a reader stating that they had found some discrepancies in the spectra published in the electronic supporting information for a published paper. They suggested that the discrepancies would be consistent with the spectra being manually ‘cleaned’. If this were true, the characterisation and purity of the compounds reported in the paper would be called into question.

The editor checked the spectra in close detail and verified that the discrepancies that the reader had identified were a reasonable cause for concern. The editor also checked the author’s related papers in the journal and identified a total of four papers that were affected by similar discrepancies in the spectra. When the editor contacted the lead author to discuss the concerns, they explained that ‘cleaning’ spectra to remove impurity peaks was not a practice that was carried out by their research group, and they did not believe that it had occurred in this instance. However, the researcher who had carried out the analysis had now left the group and the original data files where no longer available.

As a comparison with the original data files could not be made, the journal approached an independent expert to obtain a second opinion on the evidence available in the published spectra. The expert confirmed that there was clear evidence that the spectra had been altered and that this could be consistent with an attempt to overestimate the yields for the reported reactions.

Following this, the journal contacted the director of the institute to request their assistance in determining whether the spectra had in fact been altered. The director consulted with the lead author and the head of their facility. They confirmed that it was not possible to locate the original data due to a limitation of their archival system. They stated that their internal review had not found any ‘intentional altering of the spectra’. They stated that on that basis, the papers should not be suspected and should be allowed to stand.

This recommendation runs contrary to the evidence that we believe can be seen in the spectra, but in the absence of the original data files it is difficult to make a conclusive judgement.

A research group publishes several papers on an important finding in high-impact journals. Months later, a new graduate student is asked to replicate this research and reproduce the findings.

The student finds he is unable to reproduce the findings, and even has an explanation for this impossibility.

The following framework supports the ethical preparation, implementation, and evaluation of participatory processes in research funding and (applied) research & innovation (R&I). It helps the user understand the context in which they undertake a participatory process and guides them through mapping and addressing the ethical challenges and limitations that might arise. The framework was developed with a focus on the activities of research funding organizations (RFOs), including participation in strategy development and agenda setting, call topic definition and formulation, (project and proposal) evaluation processes, and R&I projects. It thus addresses different contexts, resources, and needs that impact decisions on how to conduct participatory processes in an ethical manner, and provides guidance to ensure stakeholder participation is executed without disregarding values such as fairness, transparency, equality, and privacy. Through this, it might also support future ethics review and evaluation procedures that assess the planning and implementation of participatory processes and offer a common frame of reference for different stakeholders to discuss and understand participation in R&I.

The Ethics Framework and Guidelines for Participatory Processes in the Activities of Research Funding Organizations were developed in the context of the H2020-project PRO-Ethics [grant number 872441]. The framework reflects the theoretical and empirical data and experiences collected in this time, as analyzed and synthesized by the authors of this document with support from the project consortium. The content of the document is the sole responsibility of its author(s) and any opinions expressed herein should not be taken to represent an official position of the European Commission.

This framework supports the ethical preparation, implementation, and evaluation of participatory processes in research funding and (applied) research & innovation (R&I). It helps the user understand the context in which they undertake a participatory process and guides them through mapping and addressing the ethical challenges and limitations that might arise.

The framework addresses different contexts, resources, and needs that impact decisions on how to conduct participatory processes in an ethical manner for Research Funding Organisations (RFOs), and provides guidance to ensure stakeholder participation is executed without disregarding values such as fairness, transparency, equality, and privacy.

These guidelines were developed by the European Commission and provide guidance on how to get a proposal ready for ethics approval. When following the recommendations in the document, the research proposal will be in line with international, European Union and national laws. The guidelines pay particular attention to the following research topics.

1. Human embryos & foetuses
2. Human beings
3. Human cells or tissues
4. Personal data
5. Animals
6. Non-EU countries
7. Environment, health & safety
8. Dual use
9. Exclusive focus on civil applications
10. Potential misuse of research results
11. Other ethics issues

In this project, the usefulness and applicability of a selection of fiction movies for RCR education were investigated.

A format for structured description of (fragments of) movies was developed and after pilot testing consensus on the format was achieved. This format was applied to 31 movies. Not all movies in our initial selection were deemed useful for RCR education; 20 movies remained in the final selection.

Legal and practical aspects of using (fragments of) movies for educational purposes and of sharing the teaching materials online (creative commons) were explored.

A former graduate student at Columbia University was found by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) during its oversight review to have engaged in misconduct in research funded by National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The ORI made 21 findings of scientific misconduct based on evidence that the student had knowingly and intentionally falsified and fabricated, and, in one instance, plagiarised, data reported in three papers and their doctoral thesis.

National research council absolves one previously sanctioned lab leader of misconduct, and holds another researcher responsible. France’s national research council has ruled that one of its plant biologists committed misconduct through manipulation and data fabrication in published figures, but it cleared another researcher whom it had heavily sanctioned in 2015.

The ruling should add some clarity and closure to the long-running saga — although the cleared researcher, Olivier Voinnet, is now raising fresh questions over how the French research agency, CNRS, handled its initial investigation.

This document covers recommendations on professional self-regulation in science set out by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation). The document was first published in 1997 and its most recently updated version was presented in 2019.

The white paper contains 17 recommendations for the safeguarding of good scientific practice and explains the individual recommendations extensively. In addition, the white paper considers issues and problems in the research system, covering topics such as “Competition”, “Publications”, and “Quantitative Performance Measurement”. Furthermore, the paper briefly describes experiences outside Germany and refers to other standards set on both national and international levels.

This is the 2017 annual report for the Austrian Commission for Research Integrity. In it, the commission not only provides anonymised details of the cases it had completed in 2017, but also gives an overview of the central aims and goals for its research integrity strategy.

The cases discussed relate to issues of:

• authorship, plagiarism, ghostwriting;
• citation of withdrawn publications,
• anullment of academic titles;
• ethics approvals;
• data analysis, data ownership, data protection and inaccurate presentation of data;
• right of use of visual materials;
• approval processes for doctoral theses;
• wage-dumping.

This is the 2017 annual report for the Swiss National Science Foundation's Commission on Scientific Integrity and Plagiarism Control Group. In it, these two bodies report on their activities.

The Plagiarism Control Group checks the research proposals submitted to the SNSF.

The Commission on Research Integrity is responsible for identifying cases of scientific misconduct in connection with applications for SNSF grants or the use thereof. If the suspected misconduct concerns the use of SNSF funding, then the Commission assists the institution where the misconduct is believed to have taken place.

In the reporting year, the Commission worked with research institutions in the investigations of three misconduct cases, two of which related to data manipulation and one related to fraud.

The document is the result of participant discussions during the 5th meeting of the ETHICS AND RESEARCH INTEGRITY OFFICER NETWORK (ERION) within the European Association of Research Managers and Administrators (EARMA).

The theme of the meeting was ‘Implementation of training programmes for researchers in Ethics and Research Integrity’. Participants discussed in small groups best practices and key elements for the implementation of training programmes for researchers in Ethics and Research Integrity.

ERION is an open community to discuss the practical and implementation side of Research Ethics and Integrity. The community is for all those that need to ensure compliance, efficiency, functionality, fairness and robustness in the practices and processes in their organisation. Such people may have titles as Ethics/Integrity Officer, Administrator and many others.

Set of questions to guide the conversation about about work-related stress and about stress influencing work.

The guide addresses the following themes:

1. Work-related stress
2. Work-life balance
3. Atmosphere at work
4. Evaluation & agreements

In November 2014, the first author of a decade old paper in our journal and a 15-year-old paper from another journal informed us that he faked the data in two figure panels in the paper in our journal and one figure panel in the paper in the other journal. The main gist of the manipulation was loading unequal amounts or delayed loading of gel lanes.

Self-admission of data falsification is a serious charge that is difficult to disprove, and we felt a challenge to identify evidence to counter or support this type of allegation. As general guidelines, we felt there were three types of evidence that could help resolve the standoff:

(1) compelling original raw data with evidence for or against unequal or delayed gel loading;

(2) verified replication already existing within the published literature; and

(3) as a last resort, a replication study performed by a wholly independent laboratory.

This set of guidelines from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences includes fundamental moral and ethical principles of scientific research, as well as more concrete and applied guidance on day-to-day matters of research like avoiding falsification, fabrication, plagiarism; fair authorship procedures; and reporting violations of ethical research practices.

What sets this document apart from others is its extensive guidance for the nation's Science Ethics Committee that adjudicates and oversees investigations of ethics violations. Committee members are directed to issue consequence proportional to the "seriousness" of the act; to base their investigation on the principles of objectivity, completeness, and "exact exploration;" to maintain confidentiality; and to presume innocence.

As managing editor, I view all manuscripts before they are assigned to an editor. Within a 4 week period, I have detected five manuscripts where photographs of either gels or plant materials were used twice or three times in the same manuscript. These manuscripts were immediately rejected.

However, we are not convinced that these are cases of deliberate misleading of the scientific community. It rather seems to us that many laboratories consider photographs as illustrations that can be manipulated, and not as original data. Thus gels are often cleaned of impurities, bands are cut out and photographs of plant material only serve to show what the authors want to demonstrate, and the material does not necessarily originate from the experiment in question.

When the editor-in-chief rejected such a manuscript, a typical response was: “I am surprised by the question and problem you pointed out in our manuscript. I checked the pictures you mentioned and I agree that they are really identical. But please be reminded that the purpose of these gel pictures was only to show the different types of banding pattern, and the gels of a few specific types were not very clear, so my PhD student repeatedly used the clearer ones. This misleading usage does not have an influence on data statistics or the final conclusion”.

In 2014 we, at COPE received a communication from the Research Integrity Officer of an academic institution informing us that a paper, published in our journal in 2013, included falsified or fabricated data. We were informed that, following an investigation, they had determined that scientific misconduct had occurred.

Within a few days we received a communication from one of the authors of the paper (who is no longer at the institution) reiterating this assertion and providing some further explanation; that a former student had fabricated data and that it affected the paper (but providing no specifics).

Integrity Games is a research based teaching tool on academic integrity aimed at university undergraduate students from all disciplines.

How to use the tool in teaching

Integrity Games is a research based learning platform on academic integrity aimed at undergraduate university students across all faculties. It is designed to spark interest, reflection and learning through four gamified cases and a library of central concepts.

Integrity Games is built on the idea that academic integrity is more than avoidance of clear-cut cheating. It also involves knowledge of the basic requirements for academic integrity, and competence in navigating the many grey zones between outright cheating and good practice.

Many of the academic integrity issues students face – such as freeriding in group work or handling deviating data - are not covered by the local disciplinary rules, and even if they are, the interpretation of the rules may be context dependent.

Navigating grey zones therefore requires attention to context and reflection on the broader aims of higher education.

Integrity Games encourages this through engaging and realistic cases drawn from a major study on the integrity issues commonly faced by undergraduate students in Europe.

The tool in designed to be flexible and it is available in different languages. To get an overview, watch a video at the Integrity Games page.

Suggestions and information on how to use the games in teaching:

• Intended learning outcomes and target groups

• Getting started: Using Integrity Games in teaching
• Structure of the cases

Doing Global Science: A Guide to Responsible Conduct in the Global Research Enterprise can instruct researchers how to responsibly conduct research in the current global setting.The guide highlights international research settings, including how globalization effects science, interdisciplinary projects, science in teams and how information technologies play a role. The guide can be instructive for any researcher working in an international environment and:

• Provides practical guidance and instructions for doing scientific research in today’s global setting
• Covers everything from responsible conduct to communication with the public
• Features numerous real-world scenarios drawn from an array of disciplines and national contexts
• Focuses on issues commonly encountered in international collaborations
• Is written by a panel of leading experts from around the world
• Is an essential guide for practicing scientists and anyone concerned about fostering research integrity

This book contains some cases of unsuccessful interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects. It offers failure scenarios for:

- projects that did not get off the ground

- projects that did not have the correct personnel for some objectives

- projects that did not reach their original objectives but met other objectives

- projects that failed to anticipate important differences among collaborators.

The ICMJE recommendations on the conduct, report, editing and publication of scholarly work in journals are the leading recommendations in the field of medical sciences on authorship and contributor criteria. The recommendations cover three main topics.

1. Roles & responsbilities of authors, contributors, financial disclosure, journals, peer reviewers and protection of research participants
2. Publishing & editorial issues, e.g. retractions, copyright, overlapping publications, correspondence, predatory journals, fees, supplements, sponsorship, electronic publishing, advertising and the media
3. Manuscript preparation and submission covers how to prepare and send a manuscript ready for submission to a journal

This guide enables Higher Education, Funding and Research Centres (HEFRCs) to explore possible stakeholder engagement strategies that can help to encourage sustainable research and innovation (R&I) practices. It can serve as a concrete roadmap for engaging stakeholders from a wide range of societal groups who are willing to participate in a dialogue on ethical governance.

The stakeholder mapping guide aims to enhance the positive impact of implementing an ETHNA System by developing a governance structure that promotes more responsible research and innovation (RRI) based on citizen and community discourse. Using this guide can thus contribute to ensure that research is more responsive to society‘s needs, values, and expectations.

A mentor has a research student for his research group. Over the course of the semester, the student becomes seriously ill with a chronic disease. As a result, the student regularly misses experiments and falls behind on the research.

The mentor is in doubt what to do. He wants to be supportive of the student, but also has an obligation to the research sponsor.

In addition, the student is foreign and will lose his right to stay in the country if he loses his affiliation with the university.

A graduate student from a minority background is studying at a good university. She struggles however due to insufficient intensive courses at her undergraduate university. Her grades are not great.

A faculty member asks the sutdent to participate in meeting aimed at recruiting minority students for the university's graduate program.

The student is in doubt, because on the one hand she feels flattered, but on the other hand she is afraid that her coursework will suffer.

1.1 This policy serves to provide the framework for research integrity in NTU to ensure staff and students engaged in research will adhere to good research practices and to conduct research responsibly and with impeccable integrity.

1.2 This policy forms part of the University's Code of Conduct.

Despite contemporary tourism research being more inclusive of previously neglected groups, the views of children with disability are still largely absent, reflecting a disregard for both their agency and voice. My research sought to address this gap by focusing on understanding the holiday experiences of disabled children, using their self-reported narratives.

Locating the study in New Zealand, I invited children and young people aged 5-18 years who have a disability and who had holiday experiences in the past 12 months (domestic or international) to take part. This included children and young people with a range of intellectual, cognitive and physical disabilities. I utilised child/age/disability-friendly consent procedures (e.g., easy-read pictorial versions) and obtained dual consent from children and parents. To meet the unique characteristics and requests of the participants, I tailored the interviews (face-to- face or online), adopting a variety of approaches such as photo-elicitation. Overall, I worked hard to facilitate a respectful and participatory research process. However, a central challenge was addressing questions about disability identity (Who are disabled children? Is that the ‘right’ language?). In struggling to understand and address such foundational issues, I consulted a wide range of literature. However, navigating questions related to disability identity and language was tough in practice, given diverse expectations, interests and beliefs among the different groups of people with whom I was working (e.g., disability service providers, disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and parent groups).