First Steps: Minding

Fostering collaborative efforts among ethicists, researchers and administrators (including Research Integrity Officers) would certainly seem to lay a direct path to enhancing research integrity at the academic research institution. Before collaborations among these groups of professionals may be explored, however, the cultural and cognitive gaps between these professions must be filled. And a prerequisite to mending the gaps is to acknowledge that such gaps are real and that they pose a problem. Ask the researcher whether or not she conducts her research in an ethical fashion and she will affirm without hesitation that she does. Ask her how she applies the ethical principle of truthfulness to the coding of electron micrographs of tissue samples she is doing, however, and she would likely be at a loss to provide a comprehensive response. Ask the research ethicist whether or not ethical principles can be applied to actual laboratory research situations and he is certain they can. Ask him to describe in any detail how Genome-Wide Association Studies are actually carried out, however, and he would likely struggle to answer. Ask the research administrator whether or not her institution certifies that research conducted under its auspices meets ethical standards as set forth by regulatory and accrediting bodies and she will respond by reciting the relevant certification language verbatim. Ask her to explain who is responsible for calculating the effect of increasing the n for a clinical trial on the risk/benefit ratio and she may very well fall silent. Do such gaps in understanding indicate that these professionals are insufficiently trained in their own areas of responsibility or incapable of understanding the principles or processes of their colleagues? No. The effective practice of each of these disciplines requires considerable education and experience. However, the very specialized and technical professional qualifications required by each profession may beget