The Ombudsman operates according to the principles of confidentiality and impartiality. Without a legal mandate for imposing sanctions, the Ombudsman tries to solve conflicts by mediating between both parties (whistleblower and defendant). Progress towards conflict resolution is aimed at by extensive communication and hearings with both parties. If necessary, local Ombudspersons, external referees or journal editors are consulted.

In Germany, cases of serious fraud are investigated by individual universities and research institutions. Thus, the Ombudsman forwards cases of alleged non-correctable misdemeanors such as plagiarism, data manipulation or data fabrication to the local institutionary commissions that are suited to handling inquiries of scientific misconduct.

Chart Workflow of investigation German Research Ombudsman

Ombudspersons work independently, they shall not be subject to instructions, and act as impartial mediators. All current and former members of the University have access to ombudspersons, who provide confidential counsel on all matters relating to good scientific practice and allegations of scientific misconduct.

Following the bylaws of the University of Hamburg, the purpose of the ombuds proceedings is to mediate conflicts in an unbureaucratic and objective manner. They consist of an independent assessment of the conflict, consideration of the arguments brought forward by those involved and/or affected, as well as the internal examination of facts and data relating to the case.

The aim of the ombuds proceedings is to reach a solution satisfactory to both parties in a conflict. The ombudspersons will not initiate any proceedings without information from a person involved in or affected by a case.

All workshops and lectures are based on the “Curriculum Good Scientific Practice for Courses in Science and Medicine” (G. Sponholz, 2011)

Target groups are mainly PhD-students, but also Postdocs and staff of working groups or departments.

Starting with only five introductory lectures and presentations in 2014, the demand increased constantly (18 lectures and workshops in 2015, 20 in 2016).

General Information and detailed elaboration of terms of Good Scientific practice and cases of scientific misconduct at any arising opportunity.

Currently, Team Scientific Integrity members conduct about 100 two-day workshops per year at more than forty universities in Germany and abroad, at Leibniz Institutes, Helmholtz Centres, Max Planck Institutes and universities of applied science. The participants of the GSP workshops are predominantly doctoral candidates. The workshops are usually part of a graduate academy programme, a further education curriculum for doctoral candidates, or of a graduate school’s structured programme (e. g. IMPRS, IRTG, GRK). In 2015 Team Scientific Integrity started offering GSP workshops for postdocs and senior researchers.

The length of a regular GSP workshop is between 10 academic hours for participants from non-empirical research fields and 20 hours for participants from experimental sciences. The content of the workshops is based upon the institution’s GSP documents, state and federal
regulations, the German Curriculum for Good Scientific Practice, the ALLEA Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, and the Singapore and Montréal Statements. The workshops cover a wide range of topics:

• Good research practice in the process of science
• Definitions and extent of questionable research practice and scientific misconduct
• Good scientific practice and misconduct in the documentation of the research process and data and sources management and handling
• Good scientific practice and misconduct in the process of publishing
• Authorship and authorship misconduct
• Dealing with questionable practices and misconduct in science
• The role of ombudspersons, whistle-blowers and investigative committees
• The role of mentoring and supervision for the development of scientific integrity
• Competing interests and cooperation in research
• Official local, national and international recommendations, guidelines and regulations
• In 2013 Team Scientific Integrity began training other GSP teachers. Depending on the teachers’ target audiences and the planned teaching content, the trainings last between two and six days with up to three modules. 18 teacher training courses have been completed in Germany so far. The training courses include teaching exercises, case study development, didactic reflection and an in-depth study of rules and regulations.

Based on the “Curriculum ‘Good Scientific Practice’ for Courses in Science and Medicine” which was commissioned by and developed in cooperation with the German Research Ombudsman, and upon the revised and extended version for all academic disciplines, Team
Scientific Integrity develops curricula and teaching materials for presentations, short and long courses and workshops, and trainings on GSP. Supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) and the Austrian Ministry of Science
and Research, both curricula were translated into English.

Research activities mainly focus upon the experience of early career researchers with scientific misconduct and their general knowledge about GSP regulations and procedures. The results are presented on conferences and in scientific journals.

Several of Team Scientific Integrity members are also members of the German University Association of Advanced Graduate Training (GUAT/UniWIND) network for GSP trainers.

Well-founded allegations are evaluated by an ad hoc committee, composed of EMBO Members and assisted by EMBO staff. Not having direct access to data and other information held at researchers’ institutes, EMBO bases its evaluations on the information received in grant and award applications and membership nominations, and publicly available information. When research misconduct is found, possible sanctions by EMBO include withdrawal of funding or support and revoking of awards.

To give some examples of their impact, as a result of such workshops, the Curie Institute in Paris instituted compulsory training in research integrity issues for young group leaders; the Institute for Biotechnology, Helsinki, set up a committee to produce a code of conduct for mentorship; and the Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Porto, set up a working group to develop authorship guidelines.

For more information:
www.embo.org/policy/research-integrity/workshops-on-research-integrity/

The practical application of concepts of responsible conduct of research have been a major concern of EMBO since its founding. EMBO was instrumental in driving discussions about societal concerns on recombinant DNA at the 1975 Asilomar meeting, and supported a workshop on DNA restriction and modification in Basel in 1972.

EMBO has been among the sponsors of the World Conferences on Research Integrity since the first event in 2007, and was one of the first funders in Europe to require training in RI (using a programme developed in part by EMBO and other research institutions) as a condition to receive funding in its Fellowship and Young Investigator schemes. To date over 1,200 EMBO awardees have completed this training.
Promoting research quality and scientific integrity are core principles of EMBO, which permeate all its initiatives from the training of the next generation of scientists to communicating research outcomes. The policies and tools developed by EMBO are shared freely and have established new standards and practices for the scientific community.

The practical application of concepts of responsible conduct of research have been a major concern of EMBO since its founding. EMBO was instrumental in driving discussions about societal concerns on recombinant DNA at the 1975 Asilomar meeting, and supported a workshop on DNA restriction and modification in Basel in 1972.

EMBO has been among the sponsors of the World Conferences on Research Integrity since the first event in 2007, and was one of the first funders in Europe to require training in RI (using a programme developed in part by EMBO and other research institutions) as a condition to receive funding in its Fellowship and Young Investigator schemes. To date over 1,200 EMBO awardees have completed this training.

EMBO develops innovative approaches to the promotion of research integrity, quality research, and open science. A recent example is the “Governance of Research Integrity” project, which investigated options for an integrated approach in Europe as an alternative to the existing patchwork of national and institutional regulations. The final report explores possibilities from the creation of a dedicated new European body to a range of options for coordinating the activities of existing entities. The project involved multiple stakeholders from academia, the private sector, and government, and included a workshop organized with the OECD’s Global Science Forum. For more information:
https://www.embo.org/documents/science_policy/governance_of_ri.pdf

EMBO has also researched the thorny issue of peer review for funding allocation. Information for decision-makers was published in March 2021 year in a report entitled “Dealing with the limits of peer review with innovative approaches to allocating research funding”. The report describes selection mechanisms including lotteries, equal distribution of funds, and traditional metric-based evaluation systems. These reports exemplify EMBO’s commitment to analysing real-world outcomes of science policies and the generation of innovative solutions. For more information:
https://www.embo.org/documents/science_policy/peer_review_report.pdf

EMBO is one of the founding organisations of the 2013 San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA, https://sfdora.org). DORA signatories commit to the assessment of research on its own merits, halting the pernicious use of bibliometric indicators, in particular the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), as surrogates to judge the quality of research and researchers. EMBO has implemented DORA principles: by 2014, EMBO had modified its instructions to both reviewers and applicants to EMBO fellowships and grants to abandon the use of the JIF. Instead, EMBO asks applicants and nominators to provide key references and a description of their major scientific contributions.

The peer-reviewed scientific paper is a cornerstone of quality science. EMBO has been a leader in developing technologies and practices to assure the reliability of published data and to ensure that the peer review process is fair and transparent. In 2009, The EMBO Journal instituted a “transparent review” process, publishing reviewer reports, author responses, and the editorial decision letters alongside the final version of their paper; the following year the practice was extended to all journals published by EMBO Press, a practice embraced by authors. Transparent review has since been adopted by many other journals and is now the accepted standard for progressive journals.

EMBO has also introduced other innovative practices which are encapsulated in its “Transparent Process”
(https://www.embopress.org/transparent-process).

In 2014, EMBO Press began to subject all manuscripts which pass peer review to systematic pre-publication image screening to detect signs of inappropriate image manipulation. A full-time data integrity analyst is dedicated to this task.

Development of new tools and platforms

EMBO is committed to the development of new tools and platforms, and to making them freely available to the scientific community.

EMBO’s Source Data project is an innovative approach to data integrity and “overcoming the fragmentation of science”. SourceData has curated and archived the data underlying more than 54,000 published experiment and transferred the machine-readable metadata to a curated, open database. The SourceData platform makes it possible to search and interlink data across different papers to generate and test new hypotheses. For more information: https://sourcedata.embo.org

Related ongoing projects include SDash, a community platform to create, share and post figures linked to data and metadata, SmartFigures, and the “Early Evidence Base” platform, which uses SourceData to train artificial intelligence tools to scan preprint figures, group them into named topics, and identify underlying molecular components.

The two-step process comprises an informal preliminary investigation by the DFG Head Office and a formal process involving the Committee of Inquiry on Allegations of Scientific Misconduct (which consists of eight scientific members).

This Committee presents the results of its investigations and its recommendations to the Joint Committee. Depending on the type and severity of the misconduct ascertained, the Joint Committee can decide to prevent the perpetrator from submitting proposals to the DFG for several years, to rescind a funding decision, or to exclude the perpetrator from participation in DFG statutory bodies.

Individuals can submit incident reports to the DFG Head Office on research misconduct related to DFG-funded research/activities via the usual channels of e-mail, telephone and the postal service. The introduction of the DFG’s electronic Research Integrity Incident Reporting System also facilitates encrypted communication with anonymous and non-anonymous complainants/whistleblowers, thereby supporting efficient case handling.

In order to further research integrity and establish it as an integral part of research and teaching, the DFG published the white paper “Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice”. Within the framework of the resolution passed on 17 June 1998, the DFG’s General Assembly stipulated that researchers in receipt of funding from the DFG must comply with its rules on safeguarding good scientific practice. In accordance with the recommendations, universities and other research institutions which request funding from the DFG had to implement Rules 1 to 8 to safeguard good scientific practice at their institutions.

In summer 2018, the DFG Executive Board voted to revise the white paper, a decision that was prompted by wide-ranging changes in research brought about by the digital turn and new developments in publishing, the structure of research institutions and forms of cooperation. The Code of Conduct “Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice” (https://zenodo.org/record/6472827#.Y8fIW-yg9aQ) was adopted on 3 July 2019 by the DFG General Assembly.

The Code outlines standards of good scientific practice in 19 guidelines, divided into six guidelines that define general principles and eleven guidelines that cover the key steps of good practice throughout the research process. The Code concludes with two guidelines that set out the procedure for handling instances of non-compliance with good research practice.

In addition, a dynamic web portal on research integrity (https://wissenschaftliche-integritaet.de/en/) has been created: the so called “third level” of the Code of Conduct went online in German on 10 December 2020. The main feature of the portal is a practically oriented, subject-specific commentary on the Code. Finally, the portal also contains details of current topics and events.