3.5 The Ethics of Research

The process of conducting research engages the researcher in many formal and informal relationships. This may include relationships with the institution, fellow researchers, peers, and colleagues within and outside the institution, government agencies and regulatory bodies, and society as a whole. For these relationships, the following questions need to be addressed: What are the responsibilities of the mentor and mentee in each of these contexts? What pitfalls should be kept in mind, and what guiding principles can be adopted? Ensuring that mentors and mentees have a firm grasp of these issues is essential to a healthy, ethical, and responsible research program.

All stages of research, including data collection, paper writing, and project presentations, must adhere to ethical protocols. Ethics topics include the applicability of ethical concepts in each discipline, the philosophical and historical underpinnings of research ethics, and ethical principles including issues of misconduct, conflict of interest, intellectual property and patents, authorship, mentorship, and peer review process. Ethical considerations within the scope of the project should be addressed prior to beginning the research project and written into the research plan.

All faculty mentors and mentees are expected to complete ethical training similar to the Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) course through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) Program. There are two online self-paced courses of study—one designed for undergraduate students and one for faculty researchers. Both explore a variety of issues around the conduct of research. The course is designed to raise awareness of the history of research and asks the learner to respond to specific questions and examine research conduct case studies. The topics range from interpersonal (mentoring, authorship, collaborative research) to professional (peer review, conflicts of interest) to regulatory (data management, national security). Questions of misconduct and plagiarism as well as social responsibility and professional ethical obligations are also addressed.