The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) is committed to advancing the highest standards of integrity in scientific and scholarly research and recognizes that policies and procedures for dealing with allegations of misconduct are not alone sufficient to ensure the responsible conduct of research. Students, postdoctoral fellows, technicians, and faculty must be better informed about the norms of science and scholarship, the ethical responsibilities of research, and the policies and regulations that govern research in the U.S.
Moreover, scholars face complex ethical issues that require distinct skills for identifying and assessing problems and solutions. What is required to meet the needs of society and of tomorrow’s scholars is a proactive and comprehensive strategy to integrate scholarly integrity and responsible conduct into the fabric of graduate education and research. Graduate schools, which have broad oversight over the quality of graduate education across institutions, are uniquely positioned to develop such a strategy. The Project for Scholarly Integrity is therefore enlisting the graduate school leadership of seven universities to partner with CGS in developing national models of a comprehensive institutional approach to scholarly integrity and to share best practices and outcomes with the broader graduate community.
One of the key activities of the project was a Capstone Conference at which senior university leaders at Awardee and Affiliate institutions, researchers, and funders of science discussed project outcomes and future directions for graduate student education in research integrity. Please click here to view the conference booklet.