Another building block for embracing research integrity in practice

Another building block for embracing research integrity in practice

As one of the largest research funding organisations in Europe and the central institution for academic self-governance in Germany, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is aware of its responsibility to promote and support research integrity. The DFG has long advocated honesty in research and in 2019 issued the Code of Conduct “Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice”, an updated orientation framework for integrity in the German research landscape. In addition, a dynamic web portal on research integrity has been created that is continuously updated to include new contributions from the individual academic disciplines (please see link below).

Up until now, it has been possible to submit incident reports to the DFG Head Office on research misconduct related to DFG-funded research/activities – as well as other types of misconduct – via the usual channels of e-mail, telephone, fax and the postal service. Effective immediately, these channels will be supplemented by the DFG’s electronic Research Integrity Incident Reporting System – a web-based platform that can be used via internet browsers on computers, tablets and smartphones.

The incident reporting system is not part of the DFG website but it can be accessed via the latter, too. There are three main reporting categories:
Suspicion of

• Research misconduct related to DFG-funded research/activities
• Misuse of DFG grant funds
• Corruption/conflict of interest related to DFG-funded research/activities

Cases are already processed at the DFG Head Office according to these categories, but the electronic reporting system enables suspicions to be reported in a way that is even more structured. The DFG Research Integrity Incident Reporting System also facilitates encrypted communication with anonymous and non-anonymous complainants/whistleblowers, thereby supporting efficient case handling.

All in all, the system meets the very highest data protection and IT security requirements, protecting both complainants/whistleblowers and those affected by the allegations.

Further Information

To the DFG Research Integrity Incident Reporting System:

• www.dfg.de/incident_reporting_system

To the web portal “Research Integrity” (with the DFG Code of Conduct):

• https://wissenschaftliche-integritaet.de

To the DFG Code of Conduct in PDF format (in German and English):

• https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3923602

Contact at the DFG Head Office:

• Ute Schmidt
  Business, Auditing and Compliance
  Tel. +49 228 885-2361
  compliance@dfg.de
• Martin Steinberger
  Research Integrity Team
  Tel. +49 228 885-3204
  gwp@dfg.de