High ethical standards in research build trust that society has in science. Trust in science is not a given and is also not easy to achieve; it requires efforts from academics to show that they are trustworthy. Academics on their turn need to be able to trust on the work of other academics, which requires high standards that respect transparency, honesty and accountability. New generations of researchers as well as early career researchers need to become acquainted with these high standards and learn how to conduct research in a responsible manner. To that purpose the INTEGRITY project has taken the need for high quality standards and appealing educational tools in the field of research integrity to heart and has focused on the development of evidence-based tools for a variety of target groups. Responsible conduct of research requires that students (as potential future researchers) and researchers need to be aware of, reflect upon and handle (act upon) integrity issues that they will encounter in research practices. Any educational tools that will be developed needs to account for the dynamics in research practices, as the recent pandemic has shown vividly with regards to the impact it had on (the quality of ) research conducted. Therefore, the project took a capacity building approach towards training responsible conduct of research, by focusing on the question how students and researchers can be empowered in their own research environments. INTEGRITY has taken an innovative approach towards student training in research integrity in three different ways. First, the project has taken the concept of empowerment as a core philosophy in designing and developing educational tools for upper-level high school students, undergraduate students and PhD students and developed a competency profile that aims to offer a standard to other educational developers in the field of research integrity education. Secondly, the project has developed educational tools in an evidence-based manner, taking as a necessary starting point the knowledge, skills and expertise of each of the target groups. The result is that we were able to scaffold the teaching materials to the needs of each of the target groups and for various disciplines within the academy. Furthermore, these courses have been tested and evaluated in an evidence-based manner. This way, the project contributes to the ongoing discussion on the impact of RCR trainings in the academic community. Thirdly, the project has been innovative in developing appealing educational tools that are attractive to use and that makes use of recently available teaching technologies, like online courses, web-based narratives and easy-to-use tools for high school students.
INTEGRITY has been able to achieve the following objectives, namely to
1. develop an evidence-based analysis of student needs, blind-spots, and expectations regarding research integrity across 10 European countries.
2. map, categorizes and analyses current teachings in research integrity to better detect and mitigate blind spots in teaching, and to help build tailor-made curricula for students in the whole range of research areas and in three levels of studies.
3. develop a teaching philosophy on RCR that takes capacity building of students as its main aim, using three core values (Transparency, Honesty and Responsibility) and incorporating the ‘QRP’ approach and FFP topics.
4. develop, tests and disseminates innovative tools in an evidence-based, co-creative process, and designs and tests experimental nudges to prompt effectiveness.
5. design, tests and disseminates complementary tools for key influencers (teachers, senior researchers) to catalyse their roles as teachers, mentor and coaches.
