25 Leading Researchers join EU-funded actions to teach students about trustworthy science
The EU Horizon2020 Project Path2Integrity (P2I) supports a culture that values honest, reliable, respectful, and accountable science and raises awareness of the principles of research integrity across Europe. The actions, supported by a group of twenty-five (25) international science leaders, recognize the importance that trustworthy scientific information plays in society. The learning settings as well as posters, booklets, videos, and other communications materials target secondary school and university students as well as active researchers and research organisations. The posters and video clips feature messages from the science leaders who represent varied fields of research and have voiced a strong commitment to the research integrity principles. “Research is not an area separated from society,” said Coburg University Professor Julia Prieß-Buchheit, the P2I Coordinator. “But is an integral part of it.” The P2I materials provide organisations and working scientists with tools to address research integrity challenges in accordance with the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (ECoC). In this respect, the material recognizes that individual researchers, research funding organisations, research performing organisations, higher education organisations, scientific publishers, and the entire research infrastructure share a responsibility for ensuring good scientific practice across Europe. “Research and education share a set of common values that bind them together such as integrity, academic freedom, trustworthiness, responsibility, and openness: these (are) core European values,” said European Commissioner for Education Mariya Gabriel in a video message encouraging the use of the P2I materials. The learning settings and materials have been developed over two years by the P2I consortium, which involves nine European organizations collaborating under the leadership of the Coburg University of Applied Sciences. Together they have developed completely new educational approaches to support reliable and trustworthy research as well as the content reflected in the P2I material. The materials are free in English, German, Spanish, Bulgarian, Danish, Polish and Catalan. Their digital and printable versions can be accessed and downloaded from the project website.
Keywords
research integrity, reliable research, research ethics, honesty, accountability, transparency