Office of Research Development

This session provides an overview of the responsibilities of mentors and trainees in pre-doctoral and post-doctoral research programs. It includes the role of a mentor, responsibilities of a mentor, conflicts between mentor and trainee, collaboration and competition, selection of a mentor, and abusing the mentor/trainee relationship.

This session focuses on research collaborations and issues that may arise from such collaborations. Topics include setting ground rules early in collaboration, avoiding authorship disputes, and the sharing of materials and information with internal and external collaborating scientists.

This session provides an overview of the purpose of peer review in determining merit for research funding and publications. It includes topics such as, the definition of peer review, impartiality, how peer review works, editorial boards and ad hoc reviewers, responsibilities of the reviewers, privileged information and confidentiality.

This session covers the meaning of research misconduct and the regulations, policies, and guidelines that govern research misconduct in PHS-funded institutions. It includes topics such as fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism; error vs. intentional misconduct; institutional misconduct policies; how to identify misconduct; procedures for reporting misconduct; protection of whistleblowers; and outcomes of investigations, including institutional and Federal actions.

This session will identify what conflicts of interest are and how they are to be handled. It provides examples of the types of conflicts that are encountered by researchers and institutions. The presentation will include areas of potential conflict that can arise in collaboration, publication, and in financial relationships. It will include discussion about obligations to other constituencies and explore real and perceived conflicts of interest.

Issues of the creation, protection, and dissemination of new ideas and inventions are highly complex. Within the context of students responsibilities to other students, faculty, the university and the community, this lecture and discussion will cover the ownership of intellectual property created as a result of research including data, copyrights and inventions, what strings might be attached to the use and disposition of new intellectual property, and responsible ways of handling intellectual property particularly as it related to public use and commercialization.