Office of the Provost

This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education (http://chronicle.com)

From the issue dated December 15, 2000

By JEFFREY BRAINARD

The Clinton administration has published a new policy that defines scientific misconduct and describes how universities should investigate it. The policy offers clarifications but no major changes from an earlier draft, which many researchers had praised, but some had called inadequate.

The policy, published in the December 6 Federal Register, is meant to deal with confusion and complaints voiced by researchers about the government's previous policies on scientific misconduct. The National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and other federal agencies that finance research all have used slightly different definitions of scientific misconduct. The new standard is meant to provide a uniform rule.

Like the existing policies, the new definition includes plagiarism and fabrication or fudging of data. But unlike some other policies, the new wording excludes practices that "seriously deviate from those that are commonly accepted in the scientific community." Researchers have long complained that that element could include sloppy research practices or authorship disputes that were less serious than plagiarism and fabrication.

The new policy will take effect in one year. Until then, a committee representing federal research agencies will work to make their various regulations on research misconduct consistent with the policy.

After the president's Office of Science and Technology Policy published a draft of the policy in October 1999, critics suggested major changes. For example, the critics urged the government to take a more direct role in investigating misconduct at institutions that receive federal funds. The existing model gives the institutions primary responsibility, subject to review by the government. The final policy maintains the status quo.

In a statement accompanying the final policy, officials of the science-policy office wrote that taking on a direct role in investigations "would have involved a substantial new federal bureaucracy, which is not thought desirable."

In addition, the final policy should have encouraged universities to adopt tougher in-house rules to supplement the federal policy, said C. Kristina Gunsalus, associate provost at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who has served on several national committees on scientific integrity. Nevertheless, Ms. Gunsalus added, more-uniform misconduct rules among agencies would represent "a major step forward."

University officials have also asked the federal government to provide immunity for university officials who are required to investigate allegations of misconduct. Some institutions -- and individual investigators -- have been sued by faculty members whom they accused of misconduct, leading in some cases to protracted litigation and large settlements. However, the policy did not provide such protection.