On September 17th, the Council for Undergraduate Research conducted a webinar on Responsible Conduct in Research. Here are some of the highlights from that presentation:
Grants provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have stringent ethics training requirements all driven by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This act spawned the responsible conduct of research (RCR) requirement.
With NSF grants, appropriate ethical conduct of research training must be provided to undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers whose research is supported by NSF funded grants. At ACU, the IRB is responsible for overseeing compliance with RCR training.
Additionally, RCR training for NIH funded research must include face-to-face discussions, although on-line training may be a component of the training.
Some issues that would be appropriate for discussion in RCR training include:
- Research Compliance (human and animal subjects, conflict of interest)
- Authorship, publication, peer review
- Diversity and cultural awareness
- Questionable research practices (“QRP”)
- Bioterrorism
- Disciplinary culture, nature of science, honor codes
- Research misconduct
- Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism
If pursuing NSF or NIH grant funding, please contact the ORSP for more information.