5  Integrity and Ethics

Learning outcomes

  • Students can describe basic principles of good and responsible research ethics and scientific integrity
  • Students are aware about the implications for conducting good and ethical responsible research

5.1 Introduction

Scientific or research integrity refers to the requirement that researchers to conduct research in accordance with appropriate ethical, legal, and professional frameworks, obligations, and standards. This relates to several levels of accountability, including those of individual researchers, their institutions, (potential) clients, the government, and the general public. Only a high level of integrity allows to maintain society’s trust in research, to protect the reputation of researchers and institutions, to ensure the reproducibility of research results, and to prevent fraud and misconduct (Alavi and Schmohl 2023).

Good scientific practice and scientific integrity adheres to legal regulations (e.g. New Federal Act on Data Protection), as well as principles and codes of conduct on research ethics and scientific integrity of the scientific academies (e.g. The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity of All European Academies, or the Code of conduct for scientific integrity of the Swiss Academies). Various scientific communities and academic fields also specify further codes and principles ( e.g., the Guide for Transboundary Research Partnerships of the Swiss Alliance for Global Research Partnerships, the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct of the American Psychology Association, or the Code of Ethics of the International Sociological Association).

For international and interdisciplinary researchers, this means that they must actively inform themselves about the applicable laws in the countries in which they conduct their research, as well as the applicable principles and codes of conduct of their (disciplinary) research communities.

In our view, the following principles are particularly important for students on the Master’s programme on Sustainability Transformations.

5.2 Basic principles

Based on recommendations of All European Academies (ALLEA), the Swiss Academies have formulated four basic principles of scientific integrity (Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences 2021, 15):

  1. Reliability in ensuring the quality of research and teaching in order to maximise the credibility of, and trust in, science. Reliability is reflected in particular in the design, methodology, and analysis of research; it involves both transparency and traceability.
  2. Honesty in developing, designing, undertaking, reviewing, reporting and communicating research and teaching activities. These activities should be carried out in a transparent manner with a view to achieving maximum impartiality.
  3. Respect for colleagues, students, study and research participants, society, our cultural heritage, ecosystems and the environment. Due consideration should be given to the diversity and life experience of all persons involved.
  4. Accountability for research – from an idea to its valorisation and transfer – and for its administration and organisation as well as for training, supervision, mentoring, and the careful use of resources.

Moreover, the EU specified in its European Charter for Researchers a set of general principles and requirements which specifies the roles, responsibilities and entitlements of researchers. They are aimed at all researchers at all stages of their careers and cover all areas of research in the public and private sectors. The Charter formulates the following requirements for researchers:

Table 5.1: General principles and requirements for researchers (based on the EU Charter for Researchers).
Research freedom Professional attitude Good practice in research Relation with supervisors
Ethical principles Contractual and legal obligations Dissemination, exploitation of results Supervision and managerial duties
Professional responsibility Accountability Public engagement Continuing professional development

5.3 Good research practices

From these basic principles, more concrete implications for good scientific practices can be derived, for example (for more details cp. Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences 2021):

5.3.1 In the production and dissemination of knowledge

  • Responsible data management is required when handling the data. This ensures security and longevity of data, as well as reproducibility of research results. On the one hand, the procedures follow the requirements of data protection guidelines and data management plans, on the other hand, they are oriented on Open Science Guidelines.
  • When producing knowledge, it is important to disclosure apparent, potential, and actual conflicts of interests. It is also required to respect intellectual property, and to explicitly and correctly refer to existing knowledge and literature (cp.)
  • It also means to use AI in research responsibly and make their use transparent (cp.) It goes without saying that due diligence is required when collecting and analysing data and no practices that contravene scientific integrity are used (such as e.g. data fabrication, cf. also the regulations concerning scientific integrity of the University of Bern, Article 5).

5.3.2 In the collaboration with colleagues

  • Good practice in this regard includes, for example, naming all persons who have made a significant contribution to the planning, realisation and quality as authors.
  • Peer review procedures are an important quality assurance mechanism in science. Researchers should also make their contribution here and provide appropriate feedback with a commitment to objectivity, impartiality, and confidentiality.

5.3.3 When involving human participangs in data collection1

  • When data is collected from human participants (mostly in humanities and social sciences, as well as in transdisciplinary research, e.g. through observations or surveys, but also on social media), it is essential to comply with the applicable data protection laws. Both the European Data Protection Act and the new Federal Act on Data Protection stipulate corresponding requirements.
  • The different (disciplinary) research communities often go one step further in their research ethics guidelines (e.g. the Ethics in Social Science and Humanities for the European Commission). These place the dignity and well-being of the participants at the center, particularly, if vulnerable groups are involved. Most of these research ethical guidelines are based on the Belmont Report of the National Commission for the protection of Human Subjects of biomedical and behavioural Research of the United States. The Belmont Report defines three basic ethical principles:
    1. Respect for Persons expresses the ethical convictions that the autonomy of individuals should be respected and that persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to equal protection.
      ➔ This results, for example, in the requirements of voluntariness, confidentiality/anonymity, and informed consent.
    2. Beneficence describes an obligation to protect subjects from harm by maximizing possible benefits and minimizing possible harms. ➔ Participants must not suffer any impairments or disadvantages as a result of their participation (e.g. no negative emotions). If this is the case, such burdens must be justified by the benefits of the research. An ethics committee should decide whether this is the case.
    3. Justice promotes equitable representation in research in terms of fairly distributing the risks and benefits of research. ➔ The groups of people involved must not suffer any disadvantages as a result of their participation (e.g. refusal of treatment if they are assigned to the control group).

5.4 Outlook and further literature

  • You will gain in-depth knowledge about fairness, ethics in fieldwork, conflict sensitivity, etc. in the seminar «Be fair, contextually aware, and conflict-sensitive in inter-cultural and inter-contextual collaborations: key competences for sustainability transformations» (Autum Term). The seminar will expand and complement the basic principles presented .
  • If you are planning to involve human beings in data collection in student projects, a future learning expedition will provide you with details on the correct procedure. Please consult this expedition and / or Ahsan Ullah (2022) before you start collecting data.

  1. Other rules and ethical guidelines arise when animals are involved; these would have to be consulted in a corresponding case. We do not comment on this in the present document, as to our knowledge this is rarely the case in transdisciplinary sustainability research.↩︎