Supporting EU-funded Marie Curie Actions

Four Interdisciplinary Seminars on the Responsible Conduct of Science and Science Communication for Early Career Researchers were organized within the framework of two European projects: Central European Center for Women and Youth in Science (CEC-WYS, http://www.cec-wys.org) and BIOtic Interactions in the RHIZosphere as structuring forces for plant communities, a research training network (BIORHIZ, http://www.zi.ku.dk/biorhiz/)

 • The French National Research Institute for Agriculture (INRA) (www.reflexives-lpr.org)

 coordinated a workpackage on training in the CEC-WYS project; in the Biorhiz project, the Réflexives^® team were called as experts to propose a training package to develop soft competences of the young researchers involved.

• Participants were Early Career researchers- men and women- from a wide range of

European countries: Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia in the CEC-WYS project; Colombia, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia and Sweden in Biorhiz.

• The seminars were held in Budapest (3-7 October 2005), Bratislava (23-27 January 2006), Juelich (25-28 October 2006) and Copenhagen (5-8 December 2006).

• The total number of participants was limited to 16 per seminar

 

The seminar coordinator was Marie-Claude ROLAND, Linguistics and Research Practices (LPR), Young Researchers’ Training Programme, INRA, Paris.

Experts were researchers from INRA acting as facilitators, two Project and Knowledge Management experts from Hungary and the Director of the UKGrad Programme (http://www.grad.ac.uk/)

Teaching research integrity should be an integral part of a mentoring relationship

Instruction in the standards and ethics of research is essential to the proper education of scientists. Recommendations are published for institutions to have educational programmes to provide awareness and formal instruction in Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR). Teaching research integrity should be an integral part of a mentoring relationship.

 

Training in Responsible Conduct of Research means addressing a number of core areas including :

- quality in research, throughout the research process, i.e not only at the level of materials and methods but in the definition of objectives as well as in the communication of results

- responsible authorship, data ownership and sharing, collaborative science

- publication practices , including plagiarism and assigning proper credit, citations

-mentor/trainee responsibilities

- research misconduct

 

As stated in “On being a Scientist, Responsible Conduct in Research “(1995, Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy, National Academy Press): “…scientific knowledge is defined collectively through discussion and debate. Collective deliberation is also the best procedure to apply in using this booklet. Group-discussion – whether in seminars, orientations, research settings, or informal settings – can demonstrate how different individuals would react in specific situations, often leading to conclusions that no one would have arrived at individually.(…) …research ethics is not a complete and finalized body of knowledge. These issues are still being discussed, explored and debated and all researchers have a responsibility to move the discussion forward.” 

 

The aim of the Interdisciplinary Seminars on the Responsible Conduct of Rearch and Science Communication for Early Career Researchers was to bring together early career researchers and more experienced colleagues from across Europe, from across disciplines in order to:

 

• Exchange ideas and views related to issues in the conduct of science – in particular the communication of science, gender issues in science, project and knowledge management, ethics and supervision;

 

• Give all participants the opportunity to reflect on their own practice as researchers,

mentors, supervisors and teachers, on their responsibility and to gain a vision of the type of scientist they want to become;

 

• Allow all participants to benefit from the experience of their colleagues for the conduct of their research projects and their career development - in particular through practical

hands-on workshops providing training in soft skills- ;

 

• Allow participants to meet with experts from different countries and to network.

 

The originality of the training proposed lay in the fact that spaces of dialogue sere provided for participants to collectively discuss their research projects  and research practices with the help of facilitators - reserchers specially trained in scientific communication and facilitating techniques - using a proven methodology. Epistemology and ethics were addressed in an active, collaborative environment, and not through courses as is often the case. Hands-on training on various soft skills was provided: all workshops made use of the material provided by participants. For communication workshops in particular, participants were invited to provide experts with samples of their won written productions (papers in progress, abstracts for posters or scientific papers, scientific reports, etc.) 

 

Linked document :

mentoring and supervision




Enhancing research training and supervision

Improving research training and enhancing the quality of supervision and mentoring of young researchers have become major issues in research and research policy. The European Commission communication entitled “Researchers in the European

Research Area: one profession, multiple careers” emphasizes several ideas:

1. The number of researchers and mobility are key to research efforts, excellence and performances;

2. Enhanced supervision and quality training are urgently needed;

3. Well defined training programmes must be implemented to structure the training of researchers in order to comply with the Bologna Process, and link the European Research Area and European Higher Education Area.

The main challenge facing the research community is to mobilize cognitive resources for the knowledge-based society to enhance the capacity to produce, transfer and utilize knowledge. Training young researchers in a transparent and efficient manner is one way to address this issue, if the scientific community is to move away from a much criticized “system of reproduction”.

Views are changing as to what the product of research training is – a dissertation, research or an individual, a new researcher? – and as to the activities and skills involved – research in depth in a narrow area or knowledge and skills in a wider area?

While meaningful efforts are being made to support students’ development and training through career development, skill assessment schemes or academic courses, little has been done so far to tackle the issue of supervision and have supervisors and mentors commit themselves to explicit training programmes to really improve the training they must deliver as part of their professional responsibilities.

Communication and responsible conduct of research

Training must not be confined to providing the technical skills necessary to enable young researchers to conduct their research and become independent investigators. It must also allow them to develop core and soft competencies  and teach them the core ethical standards and norms of science as well as the

principles of best scientific practice.

Research quality and Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) are indeed related topics: “Good scientific practice in research and scholarship is essential for the integrity of science at a time when the need to build trust between science and society is becoming ever more important. It is vital that the conduct of science itself is based on the highest ethical considerations.” ³

All participants in research activities must meet the requirements for good scientific practice in the following key areas:

 

1. Designing research so that it has clear objectives, answers a valid scientific

question or adds to the understanding of a particular event or concept;

 

2. Writing protocols and plans in clear and unambiguous terms, providing evidence of coherence and relevance;

3. Publishing the results of research in clear, non verbose papers;

4. Protecting Intellectual Property (IPR)- at all levels of collaboration, from the PhD student to partner iinstitutions.

Training challenges

To prepare young researchers to confront the changes and take ownership of their careers, and to provide them with the skills and reflection to develop into effective supervisors and mentors, our programme addresses the two “poles” of scientific activity, i.e project building and communication.

 

Designing a research project and developing communication skills

PhD students and young researchers in the first years of their careers share a common challenge, that of building their scientific identity. We defend the idea that the research project plays a fundamental role in structuring thinking, knowledge acquisition and elaboration, and that it strongly contributes to developing autonomy, critical analysis and the capacity to synthesise ideas and experience. The methodological approach to structuring a research project is also key to a successful relationship between

supervisors and students ⁴

Working actively and methodically on the construction of a research object and of a research project increases the chances for the young researcher to develop more quickly into a reliable and confident scientist. It also prepares her/him to effectively

communicate with society.

In the same way, reporting about one’s research results must be mastered at an early stage: mastering communication is indeed key to the elaboration of knowledge. Research activity is organized around a number of communication situations which

produce a variety of “intermediary objects”- scientific papers, posters, abstracts, projects, etc.We support the idea that the production of these objects form an integral part of the research and of the conceptualization processes, and that the research object is built while speech is produced.

References

1. Com (2003) 436, Researchers in the European Research Area: one profession, multiple careers, July 2003, pp. 14-15

2. LARSEN, P.O, Quality in research training, Nordic cooperation on quality assessment of research training, NorFa report, 2004, pp. 10-11

3. European Science Foundation briefing, Good scientific practice in research and scholarship, december 2000.

4. MACE, G. & PETRY, F., Guide d’élaboration d’un projet de recherche, 2è édition, Presses de l’Université de Laval (Québec), 2000.