New Code for scientific integrity
© Ahmed Zayan on Unsplash
The Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, together with Swissuniversities, the Swiss National Science Foundation and Innosuisse, have published a new Code for Scientific Integrity. It describes a common understanding of scientific integrity, defines the responsibilities that result from it and strengthens quality assurance.
The Code is an update of the principles and regulations on research integrity that were developed by the Swiss Academies in 2008. Since then, the scientific environment and scientific practices have changed, amongst others due to easier access to data, current development in Open Science, Big Data and social media. This creates opportunities but also poses new challenges for scientific integrity.
An expert group of representatives of the Swiss Academies of Sciences, the Swiss National Science Foundation, Swissuniversities and Innosuisse was set up to update the principles and regulations from 2008, taking into account the developments of recent years and the European ALLEA Code of Conduct (2017).
The new Code of Conduct for Scientific Integrity is intended to counteract misconduct such as inadequate recognition of significant contributions to scientific publications, bias in evaluating research projects, etc., but its purpose is mainly to establish what is good practice in scientific work guided by the basic principles of reliability, honesty, respect and accountability.
The new Code is addressed to all actors in the Swiss university system that are involved in the production, dissemination and promotion of scientific knowledge. This includes researchers as well as research promotion institutions and organisations.
The Code is available in four languages (German/French/Italian/English) and can be downloaded from the web-site of the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences.
For more information: go.akademien-schweiz.ch/integrity
Source: Newsletter and Press release issued by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences.