Canada 'research integrity' council recommended

Canada's research community should establish a new organization to help reduce the incidence of scientists falsifying data, misusing research funds or other misconduct, an expert panel has recommended.

The proposed Canadian Council for Research Integrity would help educate and advise researchers to behave according to a set of agreed-upon values, as well as monitor violations across the country, said a report released Thursday by the Council of Canadian Academies. However, it would not be involved in punishing violations.

Establishing the independent, central body would address gaps in the current system for dealing with scientific misconduct, the report said. For example, currently, individual research institutions such as universities define and address research misconduct in different ways, and they don't share the information.

The report by the 14-member expert panel appointed by the Council of Canadian Academies is intended to respond to a 2009 question from Industry Minister Tony Clement about what research integrity principles, procedural mechanisms and practices could be applied to all research funding by federal granting agencies.

In its report, the expert panel named a set of "core values," such as honesty and openness, and a set of 11 research principles that researchers should adhere to.

It also summarized the results of an earlier review of research granting councils' and universities' policies on research and financial misconduct, which had been requested by the industry minister in 2008 following a number of high-profile cases in the media.

One included a three-part documentary on CBC's The National in 2006 describing the case of Ranjit Chandra, a Memorial University of Newfoundland nutrition researcher who had a paper retracted by the journal Nutrition in 2005 after his research was criticized by other scientists.

Another involved U.S. health researcher Dr. Eric Poehlman, who was sentenced to prison in 2006 after pleading guilty to reporting false data in a funded grant application to the National Institutes of Health.