Beyond Bad Apples: Towards a Behavioral and Evidence-Based Approach to Promote Research Ethics and Research Integrity in Europe

Ethics and integrity are key dimensions of excellence in research and crucial for public trust in science. BEYOND will reinforce efforts to promote adherence to the highest standards of research ethics and integrity (RE/RI) and prevent research misconduct (RM) by developing and disseminating regulatory and educational interventions that elucidate institutional and individual responsibilities for ensuring and fostering research environments conducive to ethical research. To that end, BEYOND will adopt a complex ecosystemic perspective on research ethics and integrity that recognizes the multiple responsibilities of researchers and other stakeholders to enrich the overly simplistic Bad Apples approach that underpins most existing measures to prevent research misconduct. BEYOND will EXPLORE the existing literature on behavioural ethics and moral psychology as well as the socio-economic consequences of research misconduct and ENGAGE all involved stakeholders in a public consultation. To GUIDE and EQUIP all stakeholders in the research ecosystem, BEYOND will utilize this knowledge to develop 1) psychologically informed contextual interventions to promote RE/RI and prevent RM from the perspective of individual and institutional responsibilities, 2) methodologies to measure the short-, medium- and long-term impact of RE/RI trainings on attitudes and behaviours of students and researchers, 3) a best practice manual and guidelines to supplement standard operating procedures from a complex research ecosystemic perspective as well as a 2030 roadmap towards improving the RE/RI culture and 4) new training materials and tools to supplement existing educational efforts. BEYOND will mobilize all stakeholders via the three thematic networks involved in the consortium (ENRIO, EUREC, The Guild) and the stakeholder advisory board to ensure widespread dissemination of results and facilitate their institutional uptake and embedding.