What is research integrity about?

There is no international consensus on the definition of research integrity but in general research integrity describes an attitude of researchers and those involved in research whereby they conduct their research according to appropriate ethical, legal and professional frameworks, obligations and standards.

Research integrity describes an approach for organising and conducting responsible scientific and scholarly work. Because of this, it is inherently part of the quality assurance of daily research practice and its results.

Why is Research Integrity important?

Scientific and scholarly research is used to understand the world we live in, as a basis for further research, and to solve concrete problems. The crucial role of science in society means that almost everybody has a potential interest in the way research is done and its outcomes. Academics, policy makers, government representatives, entrepreneurs, citizens, etc., all stand to benefit from reliable research results. Researchers bear the main and ultimate responsibility for ensuring that everyone can trust the findings of their work.

Integrity, quality and legitimacy of research are inextricably connected. “There can be no first-class research without integrity,” The former director of the European Science Foundation, Marja Makarow, said in 2010: ”Researchers build on each other’s results so they must be honest with themselves, and with each other, and share the same standards of fairness, which makes the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity a vital document.”

Cartoon by Patrick Hochstenbach under a Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 license

The ALLEA Code a.k.a. The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity

Responsible conduct of research (RCR) takes many forms and is a prerequisite of high-quality research. Good research practices are based on the fundamental principles of research integrity according to ALLEA (All European Academies). They guide individuals, institutions, and organisations in their work as well as in their engagement with the practical, ethical, and intellectual challenges inherent in research.

These principles include:

Reliability in ensuring the quality of research, reflected in the design, methodology, analysis and the use of resources.
Honesty in developing, undertaking, reviewing, reporting, and communicating research in a transparent, fair, full, and unbiased way.
Respect for colleagues, research participants, research subjects, society, ecosystems, cultural heritage, and the environment.
Accountability for the research from idea to publication, for its management and organisation, for training, supervision, and mentoring, and for its wider societal impacts.

Which aspects are involved and how these are organised, is decided by the research community itself. The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (or the ALLEA Code) aims to provide an overarching European framework for self-regulation and reflects the practices that the research community itself has developed by taking its own responsibility for integrity. 

The good academic research practices that are discussed in module 3 and in the supplementary modules of the tool are all based on the ALLEA Code.

Some examples of good research practices:

Research procedures: researchers share their results in an open, honest, transparent, and accurate manner, and respect confidentiality of data or findings when legitimately required to do so.
Data practices and management: researchers, research institutions, and organisations ensure that access to data is as open as possible, as closed as necessary, and where appropriate in line with the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable) for data management.
Publication, dissemination and authorship: authors formally agree on the sequence of authorship, acknowledging that authorship itself is based on: (1) a significant contribution to the design of the research, relevant data collection, its analysis, and/or interpretation; (2) drafting and/or critical reviewing the publication; (3) approval of the final publication; and (4) agreeing to be responsible for the content of the publication, unless specified otherwise in the publication.

Research integrity and international collaborations

The ALLEA Code on collaborative working:

All partners in research collaborations take responsibility for the integrity of the research and its results.
All partners in research collaborations formally agree at the outset, and monitor and adapt as necessary, the goals of the research and the process for communicating their research as transparently and openly as possible.
All partners in research collaborations formally agree at the outset, and monitor and adapt as necessary, the expectations and standards concerning research integrity, the laws and regulations that will apply, protection of the intellectual property of collaborators, and procedures for handling conflicts and possible cases of misconduct.
All partners in research collaborations are consulted and formally agree on submissions for publication of research results and other forms of dissemination or exploitation of the results.

Although the ALLEA Code is widely supported by various research organisations in different parts of the world, the code shares the European perspective on research integrity. Therefore, it is important when engaging in collaborations, especially with non-European partners, to explicitly discuss views and definitions of the main aspects in the code. All parties should make specific arrangements at the start of their collaboration about how to put the principles into practice and what to do when issues arise.

Guidelines

The ALLEA Code isn’t the only conduct of conduct. The Embassy of Good Science has created an overview of guidelines and codes of conduct from different countries and organisations.

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