Fostering Scientific Integrity and Assessing the Hidden Curriculum

Fostering scientific integrity became an explicit ethical issue during the 1980's as some highly publicised cases in the US drew attention to the nature and risks of scientific fraud. After a long debate on the exact definition of fraud, analyses were begun to investigate the various aspects of fraud in science. As a result, the early years of the new millennium gave way to various developments and policy initiatives fostering scientific integrity; the development of ethical codes and guidelines on scientific conduct; formalised procedures for investigating questionable cases; the establishment of specific regulatory agencies; data collection procedures on misconduct and so on. After three decades of increasing activities on scientific integrity it seems that the education of young scientists became the primary focus for fostering scientific integrity and controlling the emergence of questionable practices in science. Accordingly, in the US and in some European countries, one can find numerous courses and educational initiatives focusing on the ethics of scientific conduct, usually under the name of responsible conduct of research (RCR) education (Steneck, 2013). Both as a researcher interested in misconduct, and as a teacher of such courses, I became sceptical as to whether these courses can fulfil their aims of changing the behaviour of scientists and fostering scientific integrity. Most of my scepticism is based on the apparent tension between the formal curriculum of RCR courses and the informal and hidden curriculum of science education…