Teaching Responsible Conduct of Research and Engineering to Bioengineering Graduate Students

Training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) has become an increasing concern of federal funding agencies such as NIH and NSF. In 2000, the Office of Research Integrity published the policy of instruction in responsible conduct of research for NIH funded research. This policy mandates that all research staff participate in RCR instruction. In 2007, the COMPETES Act was signed by President Bush mandating RCR instruction of all NSF-funded undergraduate students, graduate students, and post-doctoral researchers. Such training can and does take many forms, from online tutorials and study guides to seminar series to semester long classes. Core instructional areas in such training include appropriate data management, mentor-trainee relationships, publication practices and authorship, peer review, human and animal subjects and conflict of interest.