Topic summary
Research integrity
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Scientific integrity.
Definition and history
Research integrity or scientific integrity became an autonomous concept within scientific ethics in the late 1970s. In contrast with other forms of ethical misconducts, the debate over research integrity is focused on "victimless offence" that only hurts "the robustness of scientific record and public trust in science". Infractions to research integrity include chiefly "data fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism". In that sense, research integrity mostly deal with the internal process of science. It can be treated as community issue, that should not involve external observers: "research integrity is more autonomously defined and regulated by the community, while research ethics (again, a narrow definition) has closer links to legislation".