Randy Townsend

Formulating the American Geophysical Union’s Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Policy: Challenges and Lessons Learned

Creating an ethics policy for a large, diverse geosciences organization is a challenge, especially in the midst of the current contentious dialogue in the media related to such issues as climate change, sustaining natural resources, and responding to natural hazards. In 2011, the American Geophysical Union (AGU) took on this challenge, creating an Ethics Task Force to update their ethics policies to better support their new Strategic Plan and respond to the changing scientific research environment. Dialogue with AGU members and others during the course of creating the new policy unveiled some of the following issues to be addressed. Scientific results and individual scientists are coming under intense political and public scrutiny, with the efficacy of the science being questioned. In some cases, scientists are asked to take sides and/or provide opinions on issues beyond their research, impacting their objectivity. Pressure related to competition for funding and the need to publish high quality and quantities of papers has led to recent high-profile plagiarism, data fabrication, and conflict of interest cases. The complexities of a continuously advancing digital environment for conducting, reviewing, and publishing science has raised concerns over the ease of plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, inappropriate peer review, and the need for better accessibility of data and methods. Finally, students and scientists need consistent education and encouragement on the importance of ethics and integrity in scientific research. The new AGU Scientific Integrity and Ethics Policy tries to address these issues and provides an inspirational code of conduct to encourage a responsible, positive, open, honest scientific research environment.

Ethics Workshop Sheds Light on Gray Areas

AGUs Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Workshop at the 2013 Fall Meeting, held on 9 December, highlighted the courageous conversations necessary to navigate through questions of scientific integrity and professional ethics. Participants debated real-world scenarios surrounding authorship, data management, plagiarism, and conflicts of interest. These discussions emphasized the importance of preserving scientific integrity and the responsibility of each member to uphold the standards of scientific conduct.

Ethics Workshop at 2013 AGU Fall Meeting

Many important questions surround the topic of scientific integrity and professional ethics for AGU members and all Earth and space scientists, including the following:

AGU Launches Web Site for New Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Policy

AGUs Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics policy, approved by the AGU Board of Directors and Council in December 2012, is now available online on a new Web site, http://ethics.agu.org. As the Web site states, the policy embodies a “set of guidelines for scientific integrity and professional ethics for the actions of the members and the governance of the Union in its internal activities; in its public persona; and most importantly, in the research and peer review processes of its scientific publications, its communications and outreach, and its scientific meetings.”

AGU's new task force on scientific ethics and integrity begins work

In support of the new strategic plan, AGU has established a new task force to review, evaluate, and update the Unions policies on scientific misconduct and the process for investigating and responding to allegations of possible misconduct by AGU members. As noted by AGU president Michael McPhaden, “AGU can only realize its vision of ‘collaboratively advancing and communicating science and its power to ensure a sustainable future’ if we have the trust of the public and policy makers. That trust is earned by maintaining the highest standards of scientific integrity in all that we do. The work of the Task Force on Scientific Ethics is essential for defining norms of professional conduct that all our members can aspire to and that demonstrate AGUs unwavering commitment to excellence in Earth and space science.”