Responsible Conduct of Research

Education in Ethics and Integrity

Ethical issues and questions in the conduct of research should be an integral part of the education of all graduate students and the continuing education of faculty. Research directors are responsible for establishing a training environment in which ethical issues are discussed freely. The director should expect and foster familiarity with ethics as related to research. The goals should be to teach students and other trainees how to identify ethical issues and how to address ethical dilemmas that arise in the course of investigation and publication. An excellent resource to help in this process is the booklet "On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research" published by the National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.

Heads of departments, divisions, and programs should encourage the teaching of ethics within their unit. An ethics component of the curriculum should provide students and faculty with the intellectual tools and interactional skills to apply ethical decision-making to everyday problems encountered in their research. Ethical issues, concepts, and theoretical grounding should be introduced as part of the orientation of all graduate students and trainees.