A new European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity has been presented by the European Science Foundation at the World Conference on Research Integrity.

The term ‘research misconduct’ embraces many things, including insufficient care for the people, animals or objects that are the subject of or participants in research; breaches of confidentiality, violation of protocols, carelessness of the kind that leads to gross error and improprieties of publication involving conflict of interest or appropriation of ideas.

“Science is an international enterprise with researchers continually working with colleagues in other countries. The scientists involved need to understand that they share a common set of standards. There can be no first-class research without integrity,” said Marja Makarow, Chief Executive of the European Science Foundation.

The code is published in the report Fostering Research Integrity in Europe which is available online www.esf.org/publications