Form to make it easier to report research misconduct

The Finnish National Board on Research Integrity TENK has drawn up a template for reporting allegations of violation of the responsible conduct of research (RCR). In doing so, TENK is meeting the need raised by universities, other research organisations and the Ministry of Education and Culture to simplify the process for reporting research misconduct and to make the RCR violation notification process easier.

The template can be adopted by all research organisations that have undertaken to comply with TENK’s guidelines Responsible conduct of research and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in Finland (the RCR 2012 guidelines). TENK hopes that the introduction of a structured form will streamline the processing of notifications of alleged RCR violations and harmonise practices. The template is available in Finnish, Swedish and English.

Because the person submitting the notification does not need to be a researcher or a member of the research community, the template can also be downloaded from TENK’s website. TENK does not process notifications of alleged RCR violations and the notification is to be sent to the research or educational institution in which the research was mainly carried out or at which the researcher alleged to have committed an RCR violation works. The person submitting the notification should also familiarise themselves with the notification instructions of the research organisation in question.