PROBLEMS IN RESEARCH INTEGRITY ARISING FROM MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE OWNERSHIP OF RESEARCH

Many allegations of scientific misconduct result from activities that are perceived by the complainants as the ''theft '' of ideas, experime ntal results, or other intellectual property. The authors' thesis is t hat many of these allegations originate in misconceptions about the ow nership of publicly supported scientific research. Some universities a nd medical schools may have their own codes for authorship, and journa ls and professional societies have codes or guidelines. In the NIH int ramural programs, research data are considered to be the property of t he institutes, not the individual researchers. In contrast, the traini ng and experience of most scientists lead them to consider research da ta as being theirs. The paper discusses the origins of this attitude t oward data and the ways that the structures of university laboratories and training programs lead to confusion and misunderstandings of rese archers' ''rights'' to data. Also, emotional and personality factors o ften complicate these issues and lead to confrontations. Other misconc eptions widely held among researchers: the false concepts of ''my gran t'' and the ''co-principal'' investigator, ideas about who is and is n ot qualified to be an author, and ideas about sharing data. The author s emphasize the importance of scientifically literate legal advisers a nd the necessity for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and prof essors to understand their institutions' and grantors' guidelines and their obligations as scientists. At the heart of these obligations at all levels of research is honesty.