There are the ethical considerations of how to proceed in the course of conducting any manner of scientific research. These are referred to as procedural ethics and signify the typical areas of responsible conduct of research, including issues such as falsification of data, fabrication of data, and plagiarism, as well as considerations around conflicts of interest, research misconduct, treatment of human and animal subjects, and responsible authorship. While there are many considerations around procedural ethics that are highly relevant to nanotechnology research, such as fabrication of experimental results, responsible authorship amongst colleagues, etc., for the most part, the same type of considerations of procedural ethics will appear in nanotechnology as they do is most any other field of science and engineering research.
According to the National Office for Research Integrity, there are nine main areas to consider in the Responsible Conduct of Research:
“Federal and institutional research misconduct policies define research practices that researchers must avoid.”
"Authorship and collaboration problems are a serious threat to the research enterprise and to the motivation of young scientists, especially when they involve misappropriation of ideas and data."
Floyd E. Bloom. Science 287:589, 2000.
"Every job occupied, every grant received and every paper published by someone who engages in misconduct deprives at least one honest scientist of an opportunity to which he or she was entitled.”
Herbert N. Arst, Jr., Imperial College School of Medicine, London. Nature 403:478, 2000.
Known as the three “cardinal sins” of research conduct, falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism (FFP) are the primary concerns in avoiding research misconduct. Any divergence from these norms undermines the integrity of research for that individual, lab, university/corporation, and the field as a whole.
Falsification is the changing or omission of research results (data) to support claims, hypotheses, other data, etc. Falsification can include the manipulation of research instrumentation, materials, or processes. Manipulation of images or representations in a manner that distorts the data or “reads too much between the lines” can also be considered falsification.
Fabrication is the construction and/or addition of data, observations, or characterizations that never occurred in the gathering of data or running of experiments. Fabrication can occur when “filling out” the rest of experiment runs, for example. Claims about results need to be made on complete data sets (as is normally assumed), where claims made based on incomplete or assumed results is a form of fabrication.
Plagiarism is, perhaps, the most common form of research misconduct. Researchers must be aware to cite all sources and take careful notes. Using or representing the work of others as your own work constitutes plagiarism, even if committed unintentionally. When reviewing privileged information, such as when reviewing grants or journal article manuscripts for peer review, researchers must recognize that what they are reading cannot be used for their own purposes because it cannot be cited until the work is published or publicly available.
“Cases of misconduct in science involving fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism breach the trust that allows scientists to build on others’ work, as well as eroding the trust that allows policymakers and others to make decisions based on scientific and objective evidence. The inability or refusal of research institutions to address such cases can undermine both the integrity of the research process and self-governance by the research community.”
Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process. Vol. 1:20, NAS, 1992.
A conflict of interest arises when one’s judgment is compromised based on connections, favors, or competing interests, and/or when one’s position is used to gain favor or extra rewards. Conflicts of interest are not always immediately obvious, nor does a conflict of interest in-and-of-itself constitute wrongdoing.
Personal obligations, connections to other institutions, participation in other research programs, or drawing from competing pools of funding can influence one’s capacity to be impartial in a given situation. Being impartial is as necessary in producing and reviewing scientific research as it is in jury selection in a court of law or in the practice of medicine. Perfect impartiality is not really possible, as we are always assessing a situation based on the unique culmination of our experiences and perspectives. Nevertheless, there are experiences, perspectives, and connections that may cause us to not be able to think outside of our own interests. Knowing when we are or are not able to think outside of our other interests is crucial to understanding how to avoid possible conflicts of interest. It is important to note that having an opposing viewpoint does not constitute a conflict of interest and is a cornerstone to robust reviews.
“Authors should also realize that disclosing financial support does not automatically diminish the credibility of the research. However, failure to disclosed a competing financial interest that is subsequently discovered immediately opens the authors to questions about objectivity.”
Thomas J. Goehl, Editor-in-Chief, Environmental Health Perspectives, V. 112, No. 14, October 2004, p. A 788.
Problems that can erode impartiality in a given analysis should be explicitly stated and made transparent, often arising when different sources of resources are being invested in research. Using public funds for research in support of research for a private company can also be problematic. Conflicts of interest can also skew one’s perspective towards seeing or interpreting results that may not be there, or in ignoring data that are there. For example, conflicts can arise when companies are determining the health risks their products may pose, such as the risks of smoking being tested by tobacco companies.
The key to avoiding possible conflicts of interest is transparency of plausible interest in a given situation. Reveal all relevant connections to the case at hand. Recuse oneself from the case at hand if necessary.
Data are the core of research. The recent requirements by federally funded grants to develop data management plans summarize the imperatives here, including long-term storage of data, sharing of data, and other aspects of assuring data integrity, continuity, and federation. Data is considered part of the investment into research, in that it should be accessible to future researchers. Further, data or samples may be subject to other forms of analysis in the future, thus the future potential for data should also be taken into consideration when implementing management plans. As well, data security and privacy of subject data is of key importance to the protection of research subjects.
Interoperability of data, particularly across research institutions, is crucial in conducting collaborative research across a large network, such as in large scale public health networks. Paying attention and adhering to meta-data standards (information about data types and data structures) is of growing importance in sharing data between research communities, across disciplines, between regulatory institutions, governmental offices, and NGOs.
Attention to research data standards is crucial to avoiding cases such as when the thrust of the Mars Climate Orbiter was using metric unit Newtons (N) while the NASA ground crew was using the Imperial measure Pound-force (lbf), a mistake which caused the subsequent loss of the $500 million (US) satellite.
Investigators are expected to share with other researchers, at no more than incremental cost and within a reasonable time, the primary data, samples, physical collections, and other supporting materials created or gathered in the course of work under NSF grants. Grantees are expected to encourage and facilitate such sharing.
The identification of authors, the ordering of authors, the speed of publication of research findings, modes of research dissemination, acknowledgments, relevancy, and other aspects of publishing and disseminating findings. Proper citations are the foremost responsibility of authorship in the sciences. It is extremely important to adequately and accurately cite literature to give credit to those who have conducted research before you. It is better to be cautious and cite when unsure to avoid even the appearance of plagiarism.
Authorship credit should go to anyone providing a substantial intellectual contribution to the paper. Disciplines have a variety of traditions in who should be counted as an author. This is also the case for the order of authorship, particularly who gets to be listed as the first and last author, as many labs and/or fields have their own best practices for listing authors. This is a conversation worth having with an advisor at some point during graduate training. Provide an acknowledgment for those individuals and organizations that provided advice, revision suggestions, material resources, and funding.
It is worth discussing authorship at the beginning of a project to avoid conflicting expectations when it comes time to publish. All authors must be ready to defend the integrity of the research and the findings presented within. On multi-authored papers, individuals are responsible for their contributions.
“Authorship and collaboration problems are a serious threat to the research enterprise and to the motivation of young scientists, especially when they involve misappropriation of ideas and data.” Floyd E. Bloom. Science 287:589, 2000.
Responsible authorship also must consider membership within a research community. Avoid fragmentary publications, where research findings can be presented in a comprehensive format, i.e., publishing fewer results per paper to increase the number of personal publications. Further, avoid simultaneous manuscript submissions to multiple journals. (Most journals have policies against simultaneous submissions.) Publish substantial findings, first and foremost, in a timely fashion. As well, be fair in the peer review process.