Research ethics, publication ethics and good practice guidelines

• Guidelines and guides
• Publishers’ policies on publication ethics
• Courses
• Other resources

“Researchers, authors, sponsors, editors and publishers all have ethical obligations with regard to the publication and dissemination of the results of research. Researchers have a duty to make publicly available the results of their research on human subjects and are accountable for the completeness and accuracy of their reports. All parties should adhere to accepted guidelines for ethical reporting. Negative and inconclusive as well as positive results must be published or otherwise made publicly available. Sources of funding, institutional affiliations and conflicts of interest must be declared in the publication. Reports of research not in accordance with the principles of this Declaration should not be accepted for publication.”

 

Declaration of Helsinki – Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects

Guidelines and guides

• World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects. Last amended October 2008
• International Ethical Guidelines for Health-related Research involving Humans, Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS), Fourth edition, 2016
• Standards and Operational Guidance for Ethics Review of Health-Related Research with Human Participants, WHO 2011
• NIH Bioethics Resources (guidelines, policies, educational resources), US
• Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing, US Office of Research Integrity, 2015
• Ethics and Research Guidance. Medical Research Council, UK
• World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) ethics resources
• Core Practices, Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)
• CSE’s White Paper on Promoting Integrity in Scientific Journal Publications Council of Science Editors (CSE)
• Good scientific practice in research and scholarship. European Science Foundation Policy Briefing. Dec 2000
• Universal Ethical Code for Scientists. Department for Innovation, Universities & Skills. Government Office for Science, UK
• Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). Principles for Protecting Integrity in the Conduct and Reporting Of Clinical Trials. 2006
• Guidelines for the Responsible Conduct of Research: Ethics and the Publication Process. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA)
• UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) Code of Practice for Research: Promoting good practice and preventing misconduct. Recommended Checklist for Researchers 2009
• Research Councils UK (RCUK). Policy and Guidelines on Governance of Good Research Conduct. February 2013
• Good practice in research and Consent to research. UK General Medical Council 2010
• The concordat to support research integrity. Universities UK, 2012
• The ENCePP Code of Conduct for Scientific Independence and Transparency in the Conduct of Pharmacoepidemiological and Pharmacovigilance Studies. European Medicine Agency. 2010
• CODEX – rules and guidelines for research (online access to codes, laws, regulations, rules and guidelines)
• Codes of Ethics Collection – collection of codes of ethics for all scientific disciplines hosted by Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology, USA (Health Care and Medicine codes page)

Conflict of interest:

• ICMJE: Uniform Format for Disclosure of Competing Interests in ICMJE Journals. Updated July 2010: Editorial; Disclosure form
  
• WAME Conflict of Interest Policy Statement. March, 2009
• Rothman DJ, McDonald WJ, Berkowitz CD, Chimonas SC, DeAngelis CD, Hale RW, et al. Professional medical associations and their relationships with industry: a proposal for controlling conflict of interest. JAMA. 2009;301(13):1367-1372. PMID: 19336712

Publishers’ policies on publication ethics

• American Chemical Society
• American Physiological Society
• American Society of Plant Biologists
• BMJ Group
• Elsevier
• Nature Publishing Group
• Royal Society
• Springer
• Taylor & Francis
• Wiley-Blackwell

Courses

• COPE Introduction to publication ethics
• Online Research Ethics Course, Office of Research Integrity (ORI), US
• Resources for Research Ethics Education, University of California, US

Other resources

• Judy E. Stern, Ph.D. and Deni Elliott, Ed.D.The Ethics of Scientific Research. A guidebook for course development. University Press of New England, Hanover, NH, 1997