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Research Integrity

Learn about research integrity at UC San Diego.

Quality research requires adherence to the highest standards of integrity in proposing, performing, reviewing and reporting research. All UC San Diego scholars are expected to aspire to the highest standards of integrity in their research and to be aware of and comply with applicable policies and procedures of the University and the external entities funding their research.

Research Ethics

The Research Ethics Program serves as a resource for the campus community to identify and address ethical challenges intrinsic to the conduct of science, engineering, and other academic scholarship as well as provides a wide variety of educational and training activities.

Research Misconduct

Misconduct in research can take many different forms, however Research Misconduct as defined by the federal regulations is defined as:

  • Fabrication: Making up data or results and recording or reporting them
  • Falsification: Manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record
  • Plagiarism: The appropriation of another person's words, ideas, processes or research results without acknowledgement, and passing them off as one's own

Questionable research practices

Concerns or disputes that do not meet the level of research misconduct should be resolved within the appropriate research group, division or department. These may include, but are not limited to authorship or attribution of credit, access to, use of or interpretations of data, differences of opinion, or honest error. For information and recommendations on authorship criteria, i.e. who should be included as an author, who should not be included, the order in which the authors should be listed, etc., please visit the Research Ethics Program Authorship Topic.  

Learn more about research misconduct:

Reporting research misconduct concerns:

Please contact:

Resources and Guidelines

Policies

To contact the Research Ethics Program, call (858) 822-2647. 
For more information regarding Research Misconduct, contact the Office of Research Compliance and Integrity at (858) 822-4939 or email researchintegrity@ucsd.edu.