Brussels, 22/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - Developing “more harmonised guidelines” and creating a European network for training are the two areas now being explored for possible action by the EU to tackle fraud in the scientific domain. This question was tackled for the first time at a Council of the EU level on Tuesday 21 July, during an informal European Ministers for Research meeting in Luxembourg.
The European Commission is expected to present a new initiative by the end of the year for promoting research integrity as part of the goal of providing EU level standards and mechanisms for fighting scientific fraud, as announced last June by the Commissioner for Research and Innovation, Carlos Moedas (see EUROPE 11340).
During their informal meeting, ministers gave their support to this approach. At the end of the meeting, the Luxembourg Secretary of State for Higher Education and Research, Marc Hansen, highlighted the fact that if “trust is to be built between the scientific community, society and political decision-makers, it is essential that the culture of best practices becomes an integral part of research integrity”.
One of the ideas put forward is to provide “more harmonised guidelines” in the future in the area of research integrity, such as developing a European code of conduct as a “common denominator” for existing national codes and including it within the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Framework Programme. The Commission is expected to put forward a proposal in this connection before the end of the year, explained Moedas in Luxembourg.
Ministers also highlighted the need to prevent fraud, particularly by “providing training at all development levels in the career of a researcher”, explained Hansen. This is therefore the second idea that has received the support of ministers with regard to developing a European research integrity training network. (Jan Kordys)