Introductory Comments for the Scientific Ethics Theme

Providing instruction in research integrity is an obligation , not an option. Many reasons give rise to this obligation. We will mention two: First, research must be performed and reported responsibly to achieve " good science, " i.e., research that is as accurate as possible at the time it is performed. In this way, a body of information is built up that the scientific community can trust and, thus, can use in the pursuit of new knowledge going forward. We firmly believe that this reason is sufficient in and of itself. The second reason is that funding agencies and research institutions require training in the responsible conduct of research (RCR) in an effort to insure that researchers' understanding and practices are consistent with achieving good science. And severe penalties can be incurred when the ethical principles and regulations of research are not followed. One might have thought such training would be unnecessary , that anyone involved in research would understand that RCR is an absolute necessity. Sadly, that has proven not to be the case. Over the past few decades, those who believed that misconduct was virtually non-existent in science have learned otherwise. And those who believed that the relevant tenets of responsible conduct of research were known or intuited by researchers in the absence of RCR education have learned that this assumption, too, was wrong. This special section within the Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education (JMBE) contains a collection of essays by leaders in the field of RCR education and, more broadly, ethics education and research integrity. We have divided our collection of essays into five categories. The first set focuses on RCR education—who, what, where, when, by whom, and how to evaluate what has been accomplished. The second set broadens the topic to include ethics in science education—the goal of the ethics mindset, practical skills underlying ethical behavior, cross-cultural challenges, and the importance of including philosophical perspectives. The third set of essays focuses on the research community and matters regarding scientific publishing, authorship, and conflict of interest. The fourth set offers several new perspectives about research integrity—rethinking research integrity in the context of conflict of interest and the institutional reward system, broadening research integrity to include social context, reframing research integrity in terms of behavioral economics, and exploring the value of rehabilitation. Finally, the last set of essays describes innovative ways to introduce ethics into medical education …