Adapted from Guidance for RCR Education and Key Considerations for Developing and NSF RCR Plan by the Research Integrity Scholars and Educators, a program of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics
Whom does my RCR plan need to include?
At a minimum, your plan must cover all members of your research team who are supported by NSF or USDA-NIFA funds. This includes the PI, senior personnel, and any post-doctoral researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students supported by the grant.
Additionally, PIs should consider including all members of a research team or program cohort regardless of funding. Moving the training beyond a mere compliance activity based on the funding source’s requirements will help all researchers understand and appreciate that RCR education is a fundamental component of learning how to do responsible research. Furthermore, including team members and program cohorts makes the experience of the NSF or USDA-NIFA supported researcher more meaningful, contributes to the professional development of other students who are not supported by NSF or USDA-NIFA funds, and strengthens the institutional culture, and promotes a climate of research integrity.
Does my RCR plan need to cover specific content?
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If your project is funded by NSF:
The NSF requires that RCR training address “mentor training and mentorship”. In addition to mentoring, the RCR plan needs to cover responsible and ethical practices related to your research project. At a minimum, this will include data management and research misconduct for most projects. Many projects will also engage other topics commonly covered in RCR training, such as authorship and publication, collaborative research, conflict of interest, social responsibility, and safe research environments.
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If your project is funded by USDA-NIFA:
USDA-NIFA requires RCR training to address authorship, plagiarism, data and research integration, and reporting misconduct. In addition to these specific topics, the RCR plan needs to cover responsible and ethical practices related to your research project. For example, if your budget includes support for graduate students or postdoctoral researchers, the RCR plan should cover mentorship. Other topics related to your project may include collaborative research, conflict of interest, social responsibility, and safe research environments.
Beyond the issues related to your project, advisors should help trainees develop a broad base of the knowledge, skills, abilities, and behaviors needed to navigate the ethical issues they may encounter in their research and academic life. PIs may include topics such as peer review to help their trainees understand the academic research enterprise, even though they might not conduct peer review as part of the research project. Similarly, PIs may choose to include topics such as human subjects research and animal research to help trainees understand the broader issues in academic research, even when these issues are not typical features of research in their specific field.
While no list should be considered exhaustive or mandatory, see this recent Notice from NIH for a list of commonly taught topics.
Does my RCR plan need to have the same requirements for all members of the team?
If your research team includes diverse career stages, you can set different requirements for different career stages. For example, you might cover only a few topics for undergraduates on your team, but might require more topics and more engagement for the postdocs pursuing a career in research.
Does my plan need to include specific educational activities?
No. There are a variety of educational activities that can provide meaningful and effective RCR education, and you are free to choose the activities best suited to the goals of your RCR plan and the content and setting of your research project.
General and custom educational activities are available through WVU RCR services. that you are welcome to use as building blocks for your plan. You can also develop your own or use resources from professional associations or other services.
By when does my team need to complete RCR training?
The deadline for completion will depend on the project plan, but most plans should aim to have training completed within a year of joining the project.
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Example 1:
A plan that includes a monthly journal club might have a deadline of 9 or 12 months from the beginning of the project.
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Example 2:
A plan that provides all RCR training at a departmental graduate student orientation might have a deadline that corresponds to that event, with an expectation that the research team will engage in follow-up conversation and reflection about the ethical dimensions of their work in the settings where they conduct their research, and in the context of specific research projects.
My students and I completed RCR training last year for a different project. Do we have to do it again?
Individuals who have completed a similar course of training within the past three years will not be required to repeat it.
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Example 1:
A department incorporates RCR education into their research or professional seminars so that all graduate students get the training, regardless of funding, and all RCR training plans for PIs in that department reference the seminar. Any student who has completed the seminar within three years of joining the grant will have satisfied the requirements stated in the plan.
Individuals who have taken some of the training included in the plan may be credited for the training they have completed, but should complete any additional training included in the plan.
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Example 2:
A PI wants their RCR training plan to provide students with a broad introduction to research ethics, so the project RCR plan includes human subjects and animal care and use, even though these are not issues that typically arise within the discipline. On a previous project a student had already completed training for research misconduct, data use and management, mentoring, and conflict of interest. This student would only need to complete the additional modules/topics/activities such as human subjects and animal care and use for this project.