A new framework for scientific integrity and good scientific practice

Scientific integrity and good scientific practice denote an exemplary attitude and behaviour that guides the daily work of researchers and scholars, affecting also the way they interact with one another. This is essential because the scientific community, along with business and society, requires confidence that scientific results have been produced in an honest, transparent, traceable and reproducible way.

First issued in 2008, the ETH Zurich Guidelines on scientific integrity (Integrity Guidelines, RSETHZ 414) were thoroughly revised last year. The new external page Code of conduct for scientific integrity, published in May 2021 by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, formed the basis for this comprehensive revision. Scientific integrity rests upon the four fundamental principles of reliability, honesty, respect and responsibility. The new Integrity Guidelines clarify the meaning of the basic principles for various aspects of scientific activity.

The Integrity Guidelines apply to all members of the ETH community engaged in scientific activity, whether in teaching or research. The guidelines are valid for all disciplines and may, if required, be further elaborated so as to meet the requirements of specific disciplines. The Executive Board of ETH Zurich approved the revised guidelines in early December. They will take effect as of 1 January 2022.

Clear expectations, light-touch regulation

“With the Integrity Guidelines, we as the ETH scientific community have laid down the standards that should govern our teaching and research activities, and we have done this in order to strengthen confidence in our scientific work and results,” says Nicolas Gruber, Professor of Environmental Physics (D-USYS). Gruber is President of the Commission for Good Scientific Practice (GSP Commission), the body that led the comprehensive review of the Integrity Guidelines as well as the accompanying internal consultation process.

Characteristic of the new Integrity Guidelines is their focus on fundamentals and their use of a non‑prescriptive approach, which describes what ought to be done rather than listing what should not. There is little concrete elaboration with regard to specific disciplines. “The Integrity Guidelines provide a guide of conduct, not a set of regulations. They offer practical guidance for everyday situations and are designed to be preventive,” Gruber explains. “They determine what constitutes scientific integrity but refrain from prescribing, down to the very last detail, what may or may not be done.”

“Feedback from the internal consultation process indicated that the new Integrity Guidelines are overall an improvement over the previous version. Many of the comments also expressed a wish for guidance, prevention and light-touch regulation,” he adds. The Commission discussed the main points of the comments in depth and subsequently made various cuts and clarifications.

Transparent appraisal of potential conflicts of interest

The guidelines describe in greater detail how to deal with potential conflicts of interest in research projects or on committees as a result of involvement in decision-making, assessment or evaluation processes. “The guidelines are based on the principle of transparency,” Gruber says. “It’s vital that researchers declare a potential conflict of interest so that it can then be determined how serious this is and whether the person concerned must withdraw from a committee or a research project.”

Not every conflict of interest will now lead to a withdrawal. As a result of the consultation process, overly rigid formal criteria have been dispensed with. In the past, it was shown that such criteria were impracticable for internal ETH bodies and could lead to the exclusion of individuals. It is therefore no longer the case that “close collaboration over the past five years” or the existence of a joint publication from this period should automatically lead to exclusion. In the field of nuclear physics, for example, where it is customary for all the researchers involved in a project to be named as co-authors, a publication may have as many as 200 names attached to it, not least in the case of large-scale projects at the CERN particle accelerator. Here, it is indeed debatable whether co‑authorship would amount to a conflict of interest.

Workable principles to govern publication

Regarding authorship of scientific publications, the existing guidelines were adapted and clarified. It is still the case that authorship is granted only when three criteria are met: the person has made a significant scientific contribution to a piece of research, has been involved in the preparation of the manuscript, and has endorsed the final version of that manuscript. All those involved in a project at the scientific level should discuss as early as possible, and in a constructive manner, the question of who should be considered as an author of the final research paper. The requirement to document in writing all decisions concerning authorship, as proposed in the version sent out for consultation, would certainly be advantageous in the event of a dispute. In the vast majority of cases, however, this would be an unnecessary effort. One addition in this area is the requirement that the contributions of the individual authors must be declared in a transparent way.

Next steps: Awareness campaigns, training programmes

This revision to the Integrity Guidelines marks a necessary yet insufficient step towards promoting scientific integrity at ETH. In order to anchor them in everyday practice, all those concerned are to be made aware of the guidelines and their underlying principles and also to be periodically reminded of them.

From 1 January 2022, all doctoral students newly enrolled at ETH Zurich must earn at least one credit in ethics and good scientific practice during their doctoral studies. Starting this spring semester, a new course with support from the Innovedum fund will be offered in this area: Ethics and Scientific Integrity for Doctoral Students. This course comprises an e-learning module on the general principles and a module tailored to individual disciplines. This second module is currently under development, along with other content modules, in association with pilot departments. The Executive Board announced in mid-October 2021 that it would be making additional funds available, initially until the end of 2025, to pay for these and further awareness and training measures, and to provide departments with extra support.