Themes

Research Integrity and Research Ethics Scenarios for Teaching

What is this about?

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.

Each scenario is targeted at three broad groups:

Researchers;
Research ethics committees ('RECs') and research integrity offices ('RIOs');
Research administrators.

Each scenario takes the form of a hypothetical narrative interspersed with questions and resource suggestions that help guide deliberations concerning the issues raised by the narrative.

The scenarios are designed to help researchers, research ethics committees ('RECs'), research integrity offices ('RIOs') and research administrators to become better acquainted with The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity ('ECCRI') as a regulatory document that articulates the standards of good research practice. They also allow users to reflect on and apply their own national and institutional research ethics and research integrity codes as well as other key regulatory documents and guidelines.

According to the ECCRI, there are eight categories of research ‘contexts’ that are covered by the standards of good research practice. In order to ensure that the set is comprehensive, members of The Embassy of Good Science have developed one scenario for each of the ECCRI's research contexts:

1) Research Environment

2) Training, Supervision and Mentoring

3) Research Procedures

4) Safeguards

5) Data Practices and Management

6) Collaborative Working

7) Publication and Dissemination

8) Reviewing, Evaluating and Editing

Why is this important?

The scenarios are educational in three ways:

In terms of their content, the scenarios develop upon and extend educational resources in research ethics and research integrity in order to allow users to gain knowledge of, and reflectively apply, The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity ('ECCRI') as a regulatory document that articulates the standards of good research practice;
In terms of their structure, they take the form of a hypothetical narrative interspersed with questions and resource suggestions that help guide user deliberations concerning the issues raised by the narrative;
Users have the opportunity to employ the scenarios as learning instruments in a classroom setting.

The scenarios stimulate thinking by providing questions concerning the good and bad aspects of the research practices invoked by the hypothetical narratives. It is envisaged that the type of reflection employed will be strategic because, in order to answer the questions and thereby gain knowledge of the standards associated with good research practices, the user is required to understand and apply the content of the ECCRI to different research activities and contexts in combination with their local regulatory documents pertaining to research integrity and research ethics.

For whom is this important?

What are the best practices?

The aim of all eight scenarios is to allow researchers, research ethics committees ('RECs'), research integrity offices ('RIOs') and research administrators to focus their reflection on core principles and research contexts that enshrine good research practice as well as their local rules and practices.

The Embassy editorial team, Iris Lechner, Natalie Evans, Jonathan Lewis, Andrijana Perković Paloš contributed to this theme. Latest contribution was Oct 22, 2021

Other information

Virtues & Values

Good Practices & Misconduct