Insights from the ENRIO23 workshop ‘Integrity codes of conduct: how to implement in policy?’ – RIPE

Jacopo Ambrosj (corresponding author), Hugh Desmond, Kris Dierickx, Maura Hiney and Daniel Pizzolato

Introduction

On the morning of the first day of the ENRIO 2023 Congress on Research Integrity Practice in Paris, a group of various stakeholders, including researchers and research integrity officers, gathered to join the workshop Integrity codes of conduct: how to implement in policy? organised by the authors of this article. The workshop aimed to bring participants together to discuss the multiple functions that codes of conduct on research integrity play, paying particular attention to the challenges that implementing these functions faces.

Despite their aspirational character, research integrity codes inform many research policies and practices. Thus, on top of being ethical guidance documents, they shape the way academic institutions assess and reward researchers, inform educational training programs, and are used as (soft) legal documents during investigations of alleged cases of research misconduct. Therefore, the question posed was: how to ensure that the guidance in codes of conduct is effectively implemented to achieve the educational, legal, or other purposes the authors of the codes aim at?

The facilitators first introduced each function (incentive structures shaping, educational, and legal) highlighting current practices and, more importantly, the challenges of fulfilling these functions with actual policy. This was followed by a rich and open discussion among the workshop attendees. Interestingly, the attention of participants almost exclusively focused on the legal status of national and international codes of conduct, such as the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (ECoC). This suggests that the legal status of codes is crucial to the implementation of guidance in the hiring and assessment processes as well as in educational programs.

Legal status of codes of conduct

Codes of conduct are de facto legal documents: they are used for internal investigations by University committees; they may be used by lawyers and judges when internal investigations make it to court, as reported by Kris Dierickx from his experience as a member of the integrity committee at KU Leuven (Belgium); they are referred to by lawmakers, as in the case—reported by one of the participants—of the national law on research integrity of their country which was informed by the ECoC.

This raises questions about the actual legal status of codes of conduct. Should they be legally binding or not? One of the participants argued that they should not: legally binding documents should be more precise and their application stricter. According to this perspective, codes of conduct for research integrity should be considered aspirational documents whose primary function is to guide researchers. Maura Hiney, as a member of the ALLEA Permanent Working Group on Science and Ethics, reported that there was an active discussion on the legal status of ECoC during the revision process that led to the publication of the new ECoC in June 2023. The working group concluded that the ECoC should not be taken as a legal document but rather “serve the research community as a framework for self-regulation” (Preamble of ECoC). Thus, the abovementioned case of national laws being influenced by the ECoC is an example of how codes of conduct may paradoxically end up being used as the basis for legal documents, despite the intentions of their authors. According to some participants, lawmakers might be afraid of formulating norms on the regulation of scientific practices which involves answering complex ethical and epistemic questions, and rather prefer relying on codes written by experts in research integrity.

Legal status entangled with other functions

From the discussion, it emerged that the legal status of research integrity codes is closely linked to their use both as resources for educational programmes and as guidelines for shaping the way researchers are assessed and rewarded. As members of an organisation (e.g. a university), researchers may be required to comply with certain regulations. Thus, compliance with the institution’s code of conduct might be a necessary condition to fulfil one’s contract duties, and hence to get hired and/or promoted. For instance, the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva requires members of its staff to pass a test on plagiarism and integrity before their contracts get renewed. In other words, though not legally bound as citizens, researchers may be legally bound as employees to comply with codes of conduct.

Making training on research integrity mandatory by contract also for senior staff members—and not only for PhD students—could be used as a way to combat ignorance of the guidelines as a defensive strategy in investigations of alleged cases of misconduct. Researchers who have gone through mandatory training in research integrity could not be legally excused for having ignored research integrity guidelines. However, mandatory research integrity training is not a common practice in every country. Daniel Pizzolato pointed out that this poses challenges in the case of international collaboration, even between European countries. For instance, in Italy, research integrity training is less common than in Belgium, where it is common practice. A researcher based in Italy and collaborating on a project with a Belgian university will be considered as accountable as their Belgian colleagues, even though they have not received the same training. Should the Italian researcher’s lack of training in research integrity be taken as a mitigating circumstance in case of an investigation? To sum up, the lively discussion among the workshop participants and facilitators identified many problems with the use of codes of conduct as legal documents and the ways this is entangled with the implementation of codes as sources for educational programmes and incentive systems. Interestingly, the positive suggestions that were considered shifted away from such a strict legalistic perspective.

Hands resting on a tree trunk — Photo by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

A more positive approach

The legalistic approach to research integrity starts with the assumption that researchers may be committing misconduct. As a consequence, investigations and, possibly, sanctions are necessary. However, the attendees reported that in their experiences many researchers are willing to partake in initiatives aimed at promoting integrity. According to them, to leverage the goodwill of researchers, the research community should move from a position of distrust (assumed by the legalistic approach) to a default position of trust in researchers. This would imply complementing the efforts to detect misconduct and run investigations with efforts to support researchers in building a good research integrity environment. Most participants agreed that to achieve such a shift, we need to offer more opportunities to researchers to promote good practices in their institutions. The initiative of the Research Center Borstel to introduce, in addition to ombudsperson systems, research integrity scouts is an interesting and promising example. These scouts are members of a research team who volunteer to promote and support research integrity in the team.

Moreover, the need for better storytelling of research integrity emerged: as members of the research community we need to understand why it is more beneficial to follow the principles of research integrity rather than cutting corners. In other words, if we want a larger number of researchers to be involved, we should aim at having them interpret research integrity practices not just as something to comply with, but as something they are genuinely committed to.

Despite the enthusiasm around this promising approach among the participants of the workshop, we concluded the session by considering some challenges it may face. For instance, Kris Dierickx noticed that the tendency of the research community to self-regulate via codes of conduct and internal training can be reckoned as a process of professionalisation, as described in the sociology of professions literature. The more an occupation goes towards professionalism, the more internally regulated it becomes. Therefore, the professionalising tendency of research could make the use of codes of conduct as legal documents more prominent: professional researchers must comply with the codes, and alleged transgressions should be investigated. How to harmonise this professionalisation tendency with a more positive approach to research integrity is an exciting yet challenging issue for the research community and research integrity offices. By bringing together different stakeholders and fostering their reflections on these fundamental issues, events like ENRIO congresses and workshops like this one can help highlight challenges, identify ways forward, and celebrate intermediate successes of the collective effort towards a positive research environment.

Introduction

Legal status of codes of conduct

Legal status entangled with other functions

A more positive approach

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