Code of Ethics for Research
Tecnia Institute of Advanced Studies is committed to promoting and maintaining high standards of integrity and accountability in the conduct of academic research and is keen to embed and endorse a culture of honesty and transparency in all its institutional activities.
In undertaking this obligation, the Institute accentuates that academic autonomy is a core value to be safeguarded and sustained. The Institute is keen to assuring a free academic environment to conduct research, to teach, to speak and to publish, subject to the norms and standards of scholarly inquiry, without intrusion, wherever the quest for truth, knowledge, scholarship and/or understanding may lead.
Good Practice in Academic Research
Academic Freedom, Integrity and Responsibility
Academic freedom is the freedom to teach study and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations or public pressure. Its basic elements include the freedom of scholars to inquire into any subject that evokes intellectual concern, to present findings, to publish data and conclusions without control or censorship and to teach in the manner they consider professionally appropriate.
At the same time, integrity, accountability and responsibility in conducting academic research form the cornerstone of any academic enterprise and violations of widely-recognized academic research standards represent serious offences to the entire academic community at the Institute and are considered injurious for its credibility and authority as an institution that promotes excellence in academic research in Europe. Academic integrity requires that academic research follows elevated professional standards, including appropriate research design and frameworks, adheres to high levels of research ethics and abides by the requirements set out by professional and regulatory research guidance and research ethics frameworks issued in appropriate areas.Academic integrity is defined in terms of the commitment to the values of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, legality and dissemination. Honesty: An academic community should advance the quest for truth, knowledge, scholarship and understanding by requiring intellectual and personal honesty in learning, teaching and research. Trust: An academic community should foster a climate of mutual trust to encourage the free exchange of ideas and enable all to reach their highest potential. Fairness: An academic community should seek to ensure fairness in institutional standards, practices and procedures as well as fairness in interactions between members of the community. Respect: An academic community should promote respect among students, staff and faculty: respect for self, for others, for scholarship and research, for the educational process and intellectual heritage. Responsibility: An academic community should uphold high standards of conduct in learning, teaching and research by requiring shared responsibility for promoting academic integrity among all members of the community. Legality: An academic community should observe valid legal norms related to the conduct and publication of research particularly in relations to copyright, the intellectual property rights of third parties, the terms and conditions regulating access to research resources and the laws of libel. Communication: An academic community should seek to make the results of its research as widely and as freely available as possible.
TrainingThe Academic Departments should ensure that all students undertake appropriate training in research design, methodology, regulatory and ethics approvals and consents, equipment use, confidentiality, data management, record keeping, data protection and publication, the appropriate use of licensed research resources and respect for the intellectual property rights of third parties.
Publication Practice and Authorship, Notification, Archiving and Depositing Copies of Research Publications with the Institutional Repository (IR)Tecnia Institute of Advanced Studies encourages the publication and dissemination of results of high quality research. It also expects that researchers will engage in the process of publishing and dissemination of their work responsibly and with an awareness of the consequences of any such dissemination in the wider media. Results should be published in a form appropriate to the academic discipline.
Misconduct in Academic ResearchDefinition of Research Misconduct Misconduct in academic research implies (and is not limited to) fabrication, falsification, plagiarism or deception in proposing, carrying out or reporting results of research and deliberate, dangerous or negligent deviations from accepted practice in carrying out research. It includes failure to follow an agreed protocol if and when this failure results in unreasonable risk or harm to persons, the environment, and when it facilitates misconduct in research by collusion in, or concealment of, such actions by others. Misconduct also includes any plan or attempt to do any of these things. It does not include honest error or honest differences in interpretation or judgment in evaluating research methods or results, or misconduct unrelated to research processes. Misconduct includes (and is not limited to) the following acts:
PlagiarismThe deliberate copying of ideas, text, data or other work (or any combination thereof) without due permission and acknowledgement.
Piracy:The deliberate exploitation of ideas from others without proper acknowledgement.
Abuse of Intellectual Property Rights:Failure to observe legal norms regarding copyright and the moral rights of authors.
Abuse of Research Resources:Failure to observe the terms and conditions of institutionally licensed research resources.
Defamation:Failure to observe relevant legal norms governing libel and slander.
Misinterpretation:The deliberate attempt to represent falsely or unfairly the ideas or work of others, whether or not for personal gain or enhancement.
Personation:The situation where someone other than the person who has submitted any academic work has prepared (parts of) the work.
Fabrication and Fraud:The falsification or invention of qualifications, data, information or citations in any formal academic exercise.
Sabotage:Acting to prevent others from completing their work. This includes stealing or cutting pages out of library books or otherwise damaging them; or wilfully disrupting the experiments of others; or endangering institutional access to licensed research resources by wilfully failing to observe their terms and conditions.
Professorial misconduct:Professorial acts that are arbitrary, biased or exploitative. Denying access to information or material: To deny others access arbitrarily to scholarly resources or to deliberately and groundlessly impede their progress.