Responsible conduct of research (RCR)

Responsible conduct of research (RCR) is defined by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as “the practice of scientific investigation with integrity.” RCR refers to a set of ethical guidelines for researchers to follow while designing, carrying out, and reporting research projects. Honesty, precision, efficiency, and impartiality are at the core of the RCR principles. RCR education is provided by most of the universities in USA. It usually covers the topics: Data acquisition, management, sharing and ownership Publication practices and responsible authorship Mentorship and mentor training – mentor/mentee responsibilities and relationships Peer review Collaborative research Research misconduct and questionable Research Practices Scientific rigor and reproducibility Protection of human subjects Welfare of laboratory animals Conflicts of interest and commitment Safe research environments – harassment, bullying, and inappropriate behavior Scientists as responsible members of society Contemporary ethical issues in science As of September 25, 2022, NIH expects the following topics to be covered in order for a training plan to be deemed acceptable: conflict of interest – personal, professional, and financial – and conflict of commitment, in allocating time, effort, or other research resources policies regarding human subjects, live vertebrate animal subjects in research, and safe laboratory practices mentor/mentee responsibilities and relationships safe research environments (e.g., those that promote inclusion and are free of sexual, racial, ethnic, disability and other forms of discriminatory harassment) collaborative research, including collaborations with industry and investigators and institutions in other countries peer review, including the responsibility for maintaining confidentiality and security in peer review data acquisition and analysis; laboratory tools (e.g., tools for analyzing data and creating or working with digital images); recordkeeping practices, including methods such as electronic laboratory notebooks secure and ethical data use; data confidentiality, management, sharing, and ownership research misconduct and policies for handling misconduct responsible authorship and publication the scientist as a responsible member of society, contemporary ethical issues in biomedical research, and the environmental and societal impacts of scientific research https://researchsupport.psu.edu/orp/education/responsible-conduct-of-research-rcr/ Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) program for RCR https://about.citiprogram.org/series/responsible-conduct-of-research-rcr/ https://oir.nih.gov/sourcebook/ethical-conduct/responsible-conduct-research-training https://www.uml.edu/research/integrity/responsible-conduct/ https://med.umn.edu/gps/research-education-training/responsible-conduct https://researchservices.cornell.edu/resources/responsible-conduct-research-rcr-topics-and-case-studies https://bioethics.iu.edu/education/responsible-conduct.html https://guides.library.iit.edu/rcrintro https://research.uoregon.edu/manage/integrity-compliance/responsible-conduct-research https://research.ncsu.edu/administration/compliance/research-compliance/research-integrity/rcr-training/ https://www.research.ucsb.edu/research-integrity/rcr https://tenk.fi/en/research-misconduct/responsible-conduct-research-rcr Publisher Policies on the Use of AI https://guides.library.iit.edu/c.php?g=1310993&p=9671674 Research Ethics training https://www.training.nih.gov/policies/research-ethics/