Responsible and ethical conduct of research
Research is foundational to improving and evolving our society and to creation of new knowledge. Faculty (and others responsible for supervising research by students or peers) are expected to ensure the professional and ethical conduct of research, and have a special obligation to promote and maintain an environment that encourages absolute intellectual honesty and integrity. This environment should promote:
- Equitable assignment of credit and responsibility for research and publications.
- Open communication among researchers.
- An emphasis on quality rather than quantity of research.
- Appropriate supervision of personnel.
- Maintenance of accurate records related to research data, procedures and results.
What is research misconduct?
The Office of Research Integrity, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, defines research misconduct as fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.
- Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
- Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.
- Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
- Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion.
UC Santa Cruz Office of Research utilizes the UC Policy on Research Misconduct and UC Santa Cruz Research Integrity procedures to assess and manage allegations of research misconduct. Academic misconduct allegations are managed by UC Santa Cruz’s Academic Personnel Office. Disputes related to research that do not involve research misconduct or other misconduct should be resolved within the appropriate research group, center, or department. Such disputes might relate to authorship, attribution of credit, confidentiality, access to or interpretations of data, simple negligence, differences of opinion, or honest error.
Avoiding research misconduct
Researchers are encouraged to conduct research ethically. All UC Santa Cruz personnel can educate themselves on responsible conduct by completing Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Training, which discusses ways to avoid misconduct.
As the use of generative AI tools becomes more commonplace, it is a researcher’s responsibility to follow the AI policies of sponsoring agencies and publishers when submitting material. Failure to follow such policies could be cause for an investigation of research misconduct. If you have concerns about improper use of AI, contact research@ucsc.edu.
Reporting research misconduct
Initial inquiries can be brought to Csilla Csaplár at csilla@ucsc.edu. All reports of suspected misconduct will be forwarded to the Research Integrity Officer, John MacMillan, at jomacmil@ucsc.edu.