Integrity and misconduct in research : report of the Commission on Research Integrity to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the House Committee on Commerce, the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources.

  • United States. Commission on Research Integrity.
Date:
1995
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Integrity and misconduct in research : report of the Commission on Research Integrity to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the House Committee on Commerce, the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Commission Deliberations and Recommendations Promoting and Maintaining Research Integrity: A Shared Responsibility Who is responsible for promoting and maintaining research integrity? The Commission on Research Integrity endorses the concept that individual scientists, research institutions, and professional societies bear primary responsibility for the integrity of science, the legitimacy of scientific practices, and the investigation and response to cases of alleged research misconduct. Institutions and units within them that train and hire investigators are responsible for selecting, socializing, educating, supervising, and disciplining research scientists. This responsibility must be shared, however, by professional societies and the journals that review and publish results of research. Any activity of the Federal Government in this domain should support and complement the institutional role, and federal intervention should occur only when institutions fail to fulfill their responsibilities. With this perspective in mind, the Commission, in keeping with its charge, focused primarily on the Federal Government’s role in ensuring the integrity of PHS-funded research. The Commission believes that a federal presence is and will continue to be needed to protect the federal interest in funded research and in public health. Furthermore, federal intervention is specifically required when misconduct allegations concern research studies that span multiple institutions. The Federal Government's role should also include stimulating the best efforts of all members of the scientific community to create an environment conducive to research integrity and, in its own intramural laboratories, serving as an exemplar of research integrity. Finally, a federal presence can protect the rights of whistleblowers and respondents who, for a variety of reasons, believe that their local institution cannot or did not provide a fair forum for examining misconduct allegations. After assessing current federal oversight activities, the Commission proposed changes intended to focus and strengthen the contributions of DHHS to research integrity--without imposing undue burden on institutions, individual scientists or, for that matter, on federal oversight mechanisms. The Commission devoted particular attention to ways to enhance nonfederal responsibility for promoting and maintaining research integrity. As noted above, it attaches great importance to the educational responsibilities of research institutions and of professional and scientific associations in creating and preserving research environments that foster the ethical conduct of science. In making its recommendations, the Commission made a concerted effort to minimize the need for additional regulatory activities. However, implementing some of its recommendations will, of necessity, require new federal regulations. Recommendations that address issues involving