Education Scientific Integrity for PhD candidates

About this course

Lately science has been compromised in more than one occasion by issues related to the integrity of researchers and research teams. Individuals and the culture in which science can grow and proliferate seem to have become vulnerable to mainly three breaches of integrity: Fraud, Falsehood and Plagiarism (FFP). For young scientists in training the question thus arises: are my ideals of becoming a scientist still realistic? Ideals of being independent in criticism, audacious in reasoning, creative in observing and theorizing. Or do issues of sponsoring, pressure to show results, earning grants, nowadays have an one-sided impact on scientific conduct and thinking, depriving scientific endeavour of such ideals?

Integrity as a professional competency

This course is designed to discuss the above mentioned matters with researchers in training for PhD. Goal is to develop integrity as a professional competency in relation with personality factors. The central concept of integrity, together with virtues like honesty, courage, reliability, prudence will be discussed in the context codes and rules of conduct. PhD candidates will learn to discuss matters of integrity critically by using those virtues and to determine their proportionality in daily practice. Actual problems will be brought in by the PhD candidates as 'cases' and actual matters from politics and media will be analyzed. Special attention will be given to the relations between scientists, promotores, PhD candidates and postdocs.