Doctoral students sign scientific integrity declaration
38 PhD and research master students concluded ERIM's mandatory scientific integrity course by signing a declaration last Tuesday.
Scientists are routinely confronted with integrity dilemmas:
- Can I exclude particular observations from my research?
- Can I leave out certain statistics from the analysis I report?
- Can I use the same data set or idea in multiple papers?
- Can I agree on colleagues being co-authors on a paper if they don't contribute significantly?
To help young researchers address these issues, Professors <link people finn-wynstra>Finn Wynstra and <link people patrick-groenen>Patrick Groenen teach the course '<link doctoral-programme doctoral-courses detail>Scientific Integrity,' as part of the curriculum of ERIM's doctoral programme. They want to help the students develop their own 'moral compass.'
The course consists of four sessions, in which Wynstra and Groenen provide the students with information on ERIM's values and important Codes of Conduct; debate dilemmas with them; and require the students to write a paper about a case of research misconduct and how to promote an ethical research climate.
38 junior researchers concluded the course by signing a declaration by which they explicitly committed themselves to the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Scientific Practice. All ERIM members will be required to sign this declaration.
From 2011 onwards, ERIM has undertaken various initiatives to stimulate awareness of scientific professionalism and integrity. This course on scientific integrity is one of them; it was first taught in late 2012.
