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Research

Research Ethics and Integrity at DCU

DCU is committed to ensuring the highest standards of integrity in all aspects of our research, in line with the National Policy Statement on Ensuring Research Integrity in Ireland, HEA Principles of Good Practice in Research within Irish Higher Education Institutions and the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity.

Our commitment to upholding the highest standards of conduct in research is formally expressed through the codes and policies which are publicly available via the Policies section of the DCU website. The following are specific to research integrity:

These codes and policies are regularly reviewed against external standards to ensure that they reflect current best practice. As an associate member of the UK Research Integrity Office, DCU draw upon their guidelines and advice during the revision process. The Research Support office work together with colleagues in the Office of the Chief Operations Officer, Human Resources, Graduate Studies, Information Systems Services and the Library to ensure our research integrity codes and policies are also in line with relevant legislation and existing institutional policies and systems.

In order to promote best practice in responsible research behaviour, DCU provide training on Research Integrity. This includes online Research Integrity modules tailored for early stage researchers and experienced researchers, plus a Research Integrity Training Programme targeted at graduate research students. Research integrity is a key component in the induction of staff and research students, and presentations and resources are made available to the DCU research community via the Research Support section of the website.

Maintaining well-established ethical standards is an important aspect of upholding the integrity of the research process. The Research Ethics Committee (REC) exists to promote the highest ethical standards in all research at DCU involving human participants or animal subjects.  In addition to providing guidelines on the submission process for ethical review, the REC also provides topic-specific resources and guideline documents to inform the proposal development process. The REC provides advice to Faculty Research Ethics Committees and School ethics review panels, who report annually to the REC on their activity. The REC also liaise with the Animal Welfare Body. Full details available via the Research Support section of the website.

For further information, please contact the following:

Contact point for allegations of research misconduct (Research Integrity Officer): Dr. Declan Raftery

Contact points for research integrity policy and training development: Sharon King (graduate students) and Fiona Brennan (academic staff and postdoc researchers)

Contact point for the DCU Research Ethics Committee: rec@dcu.ie