RCR Core Areas

Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) includes the following core areas

• Data Acquisition, Management, Sharing, and Ownership
• Mentor/Trainee Responsibilities
• Publication Practices, Responsible Authorship
• Peer Review
• Collaborative Science
• Human Subjects
• Research Involving Animals
• Research Misconduct
• Conflict of Interest and Commitment

1. Data Acquisition, Management, Sharing, and Ownership

   Data provide the factual basis for scientific work and the integrity of research depends on integrity in all aspects of data management, including the collection, use, and sharing of data. Integrity of data is a shared responsibility that all researchers have an interest in, and a responsibility for protecting the integrity of the research record. The quality of data collection depends on thoughtful planning and adequate preparation for data collection helps to ensure that resources are not wasted and that significant results can be obtained. The selection and analysis of data should be carefully planed and specified before any research commences. In the interest of a collaborative scientific community, data should be shared thus increasing the likelihood for new insights, collaboration, and reciprocal sharing.

   1. Appropriate methods
   2. Attention to detail
   3. Authorizing
   4. Management: recording, storing, protecting
   5. Sharing
   6. Ownership
2. Mentor/Trainee Responsibility

   Although mentoring alone may be insufficient, mentoring is essential to promote a positive attitude and understanding of the responsible conduct of research.

   1. A mentor's role is to provide advice, help, and encouragement, to guide rather than decide for the trainee.
   2. The trainees' responsibility is to seek out mentors and to act based on their own values, goals, and experience.

3. Publication Practices, Responsible Authorship
   Authorship is often viewed as the 'currency' of science. A strong publication record can lead to career opportunities, research funding, respect. Research partners/teams should decide ahead of commencing work on collaborative research projects:
   1. Who should be an author?
   2. What order should the authors' names appear?
   3. What are the rights and responsibilities of each author?
   4. What are the rights and responsibilities of a reviewer?
4. Peer Review
   The timely review and evaluation of scientific work by one's professional colleagues. In conducting peer reviews, issues such as offering constructive, thorough, non-personal bias, attention and respect for confidentiality and timeliness are stressed. Additional issues include: ethical obligations for reviewers of manuscripts; the importance of meeting deadlines when conducting peer review; assessing the quality and appropriateness of research methods; examining how quality research may be compromised; how to judge or evaluate the importance of research; and how to conduct confidential peer reviews in the case of grant proposals, manuscripts for scientific publication and personnel matters such as tenure and promotion.
5. Collaborative Science
   Research has increasingly become a collaborative enterprise. Research groups may include all levels of researchers, faculty, staff, students, and may be local, regional, national, or international in their makeup. Interdisciplinary research projects bring together researchers from acrosss many fields and disciplines. All research integrity and ethhics issues are easily exaswerbated.
6. Human Subjects
   Conducting research using human subjects is a privilege and with it comes a great responsiblity. The responsible researcher recognizes the potential for harm to her subjects, direct or indirect, and strives to minimize that potential. Institutional Review Boards (IRB) are established to review human subjects research in accordance with federal regulations to insure the protection of human subjects.
7. Research Involving Animals
   Animal research has become quite controversial, often causing vocal, even violent reactions from animal rights groups. Researchers using animals have responsibilities towards their subjects primary of which is that the experiments must have scientific merit. Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) are established in institutions to oversee the responsible and ethical conduct of animal research, ensuring that experiments meet humane and scientific standards.
8. Research Misconduct
   Research misconduct often takes the form of fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. Other forms of misconduct include the violation of ethical standards, (especially regarding human and animal subjects) self-plagiarism, ghostwriting, suppression of information, financial fraud. Some misconduct may violate laws, all misconduct violates the scientific community and the public who have placed their trust with the scientists. The ill consequences of research misconduct may include not only the reputation of the researcher, but the researcher's institution, collaborators, reviewers, discipline, the entire field of sciences, and the trust of the public. The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) is one of the bodies concerned with research integrity in the United States. The ORI writes policies and regulations to prevent and detect scientific misconduct, offers related education, and investigates cases of scientific misconduct in biomedical and behavioral research.
9. Conflicts of Interest
   A conflict of interest may occur if an employee compromises professional judgment in carrying out College teaching, research, outreach, or public service activities because of an external relationship that directly or indirectly affects the business or significant financial interest of the employee, an immediate family member, or an associated entity. A conflict of interest is a situation in which there is discord between a primary duty and secondary interests. While interests can be either financial or non-financial, they can lead to bias in the conduct and/or interpretation of research, and they can have an impact on the safety of human or animal research subjects. There are a number of types of conflicts of interest:
   1. Scientific Conflict of Interest
   2. Academic Conflict of Interest
   3. Nepotism
   4. Conflict of Commitment or Effort
   5. Conflict of Conscience