The Project for Scholarly Integrity

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.

The objectives of the Project for Scholarly Integrity are:

• to expand the cadre of graduate deans who will serve
  as leaders in fostering a climate of research integrity in graduate education
• to generate information about what works best in promoting
  a comprehensive institutional approach to RCR education
• to document the results of the funded projects
• to promote nationwide activity-building on this initiative
  through publications, meetings with stakeholders, and interactive media

RELATED CGS INITIATIVES

The Project for Scholarly Integrity builds upon the experiences of two prior CGS pilot projects. An initial project funded by the Office of Research Integrity supported the generation and testing of strategic interventions and assessment strategies in the behavioral and biomedical fields at ten universities. A subsequent CGS initiative funded by the National Science Foundation supported the integration of responsible conduct of research into the regular practice of graduate education at eight universities. That project addressed the needs of students in science and engineering for enhanced skills in ethical reasoning about issues that arise in interdisciplinary research and in public-policy arenas. The new Project for Scholarly Integrity builds upon results from both earlier projects by drawing on resources created and conclusions reached.