Overview

The Research Integrity - How to Conduct Responsible Research in a Rapidly Changing Research Environment course the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam is a highly interactive course where participants engage with different issues such as replication, the peer review crisis, and what a responsible research culture looks like. We also look into the future of academia and specifically open science.

The integrity of scientific research has received an increase in attention in recent years. Researchers, policy makers, politicians as well as universities at large have raised concerns about the way academic research is organized and about the influence of the research culture on research practice.

Academia is currently facing a challenging set of problems: first, the prevalence of research misbehaviour was found higher than desirable; second, the reproducibility crisis and the factors contributing to the impossibility to replicate a large set of research results; and third, the issue of research waste, which is mainly due to poor reporting and the failure to publish negative or ambiguous results.

Learning Objectives:

In this course, students will learn: 

• What the current status of academic research requires; 

• Whether there is a replicability crisis and what remedies are coined to improve science; 

• How to apply the code of conduct for research integrity within student’s own work; 

• How to reflect on research integrity dilemmas within specific  fields; 

• How one can spot unprofessional conduction of research; and 

• What research integrity will look like in the future and how experts expect academic research to be organized.