Fake news, misinformation, and disinformation as well as fabricated or falsified data pose significant societal challenges in the fight against COVID-19. Research and its potential to develop ecological, political, economic, medical, social, cultural, and ethical solutions is one of society’s postmodern cornerstones. Honest and reliable research produces sustainable and traceable conclusions, generating further indispensable developments in our society. Research misconduct, misinformation, and disinformation, therefore, represent a threat to the public, lead to economic and societal disadvantages, and undermine trust in science in general (
Mejlgaard et al. 2020).
We assume that learning RI impacts students’ RCR (
Kalichman 2019) and their trust in science (
Priess-Buchheit et al. 2021). RI/RCR training affects how students, (future) researchers, and citizens value research and its findings (
Turrens 2005;
Plemmons et al. 2020). Learning RI strengthens the understanding of research and innovation co-creation and aims at encouraging students to stand up for sound scientific practices and trustworthy scientific societal impact (e.g., the European Commission’s Path2Integrity projects).
Although the importance of RI has been recognised as a transcultural phenomenon across Europe (
Mejlgaard et al. 2020), cultural differences significantly impact the understanding and practice of RI. RI stands for a commitment to professional, legal, and ethical responsibilities, values, and principles that regulate research (
The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity 2017, p. 3). Steneck (2007) summarised that responsible conduct of research is simply good citizenship applied to a researcher’s professional life. RI “is defined as possessing and steadfastly adhering to professional standards, as outlined by professional organisations, research institutions and, when relevant, the government and public” (
Steneck 2006, p. 56). Established professional norms and ethical principles for doing research guide the intellectual honesty in designing, conducting, evaluating, and reporting research. The main purpose of RI refers to researchers not engaging in fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism. Additionally, RI extends beyond that to include the way researchers are expected to behave in their work and their interactions with other researchers (
Fanelli et al. 2015).
This article aims to outline initial insights into students’ mindsets about RI and responsible conduct of research by considering cultural features. To achieve this, we conducted a cross-cultural comparison between two European countries, Germany and Bulgaria, based on five key RI facets, namely (i) understanding of RI, (ii) importance of RI, (iii) RI value–action gap, (iv) RI enforcement approaches, and (v) RI training.
The different facets of RI
The European Code of Conduct contextualises the following fundamental principles of research integrity (
The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity 2017, p. 4):
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“Reliability in ensuring the quality of research, reflected in the design, the methodology, the analysis and the use of resources.
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Honesty in developing, undertaking, reviewing, reporting and communicating research in a transparent, fair, full and unbiased way.
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Respect for colleagues, research participants, society, ecosystems, cultural heritage and the environment.
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Accountability for the research from idea to publication, for its management and organisation, for training, supervision and mentoring, and for its wider impacts.”
Learning RI refers to internalizing the abovementioned principles. Students acquire knowledge about how to cite sources correctly, which code of conduct and standards to adhere to, how to work in collaborative research teams, etc. In learning RI, they apply academic integrity and commit to the principles of honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage in academic settings (
International Centre for Academic Integrity 2021).
RI/RCR courses are not standard in Europe’s HEIs curriculums. Nevertheless, related courses, such as scientific work, research procedures, or research ethics, include RI in several ways. Accordingly, whenever this article discusses training, the term refers to a learning setting in which RI is one of the intended learning outcomes in practice.
Trainers often point out the challenges in influencing students to improve their knowledge in RI/RCR. Although RI/RCR training is a key pillar in how researchers conduct their research, little is known about the modus operandi. According to
Andorno et. al. (2019), a main challenge in teaching RI/RCR is that students do not see the relevance. Students transitioning to HEI have difficulties connecting to RI/RCR because they do not see themselves as (future) researchers. Students in their initial stage of university education seem to have low motivation to learn RI/RCR (
Priess-Buchheit et al. 2021).
Although the importance of RI seems to be widely acknowledged (
The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity 2017), research misconduct is handled in various ways across Europe (
ENRIO n.d.). Experts suggest a cultural alignment in RI mindsets and practices (
Burger and Wolstein 2020;
Bonn and Pinxten 2021) and assume that the level of corruption in different countries—according to the corruption perception index (CPI) of Transparency International—corresponds to the respective mindset related to RI. To elaborate appropriate teaching designs for RI training in HEIs, more knowledge is needed about students’ RI mindsets.
In this article, we differentiate between an internal and an external perspective on the importance of RI. The internal perspective refers to methodology, status quo of existing knowledge, and procedures to be followed by current and prospective researchers in their disciplines. From the internal perspective, RI is of essential importance for researchers and research organisations themselves. In contrast, the external perspective refers to research and science as a particular system in society, and the focus lies on the social relevance of RI. The internal perspective can be described with the following statements: (
i) RI is the “quality safeguard” of science and technology, the social sciences, and the humanities; (
ii) RI protects the reputation and careers of researchers and research organisations; and (
iii) RI prevents the waste of money, time, and effort. The external perspective, in turn, refers to the following statements: (
i) RI prevents adverse impact on patients and the public; (
ii) RI promotes economic advancement; (
iii) RI prevents avoidable waste of resources (
Science Europe Working Group 2015).
HEIs take both perspectives into account and follow the internal perspective by training (future) researchers to responsibly conduct research, and the external perspective by enlightening students about the value of (their future) academic work for society. Time students spend in HEIs is a time of professionalization, during which they practice both perspectives in forms of standards, norms and responsible conduct. In this line of argumentation, we compare what students tell each other about research integrity with what they tell about their own academic behaviour in HEIs.
Goddiksen et al. (2021),
McCabe et al. (2001), and
Craig and Evans (2015) suggest a link between students’ cheating behaviour and justifications of cheating. Studies into how students value academic/research integrity (
McCabe et al. 1999;
Stephens et al. 2021) document a value–action gap referring to a systematically observed difference between the importance of academic and research integrity reported by students and their reported actual behaviour in academia and in research. To understand differences and similarities in students’ mindsets in regard to RI, this article examines how students from different cultures talk about themselves as academicians and what they expect academicians to do.
Value–action gaps are well studied in relation to environmental issues and the promotion of sustainable behaviour. The value–action gap emphasizes the need to overcome the (solely) rational presumption about decision-making. Furthermore, it considers that the decision-making process is influenced by individual, social, and institutional arrangements to bridge the gap between what people think and what people do in situations (
Blake 1999;
Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002).
Apart from the need for a better understanding of RI and its importance, gaining insights into how to enforce RI makes it possible to introduce tailored interventions in the future. We focus on the broadly discussed pair of terms in the field of business ethics—compliance and integrity. Hereby a consensus has been achieved that compliance and integrity are two sides of the same coin. While compliance refers to external norms and rules (legalist perspective), integrity implies a voluntary self-commitment to principles and moral prescriptions (value-based perspective). Compliance needs value orientation, whereas integrity needs (external) norms (
Thielemann, 2005;
Schöttl and Ranisch, 2016). In this article, we explore how students would implement RI in terms of the relationship between compliance and integrity. Since RI education research is an emerging field, it is important to understand what the recipients of RCR/RI training associate with the subject.
We consider the following dimensions are key facets to explore RI: understanding, importance, value–action gap, and enforcement approaches. They are fundamental for designing RI learning strategies and for the promotion of RI at HEIs. As a last facet, this article highlights students’ preferences with regard to RI training. Trainers can apply different teaching designs in the field of RI, corresponding to criteria such as (
i) elective versus compulsory course of study, (
ii) standalone course of study versus integrating RI into existing study courses, and (
iii) teaching RI at the secondary education level versus at the tertiary education level. Combinations of these criteria result in various teaching designs that are applied in educational institutions. To date, there is no definitive knowledge on what kind of design leads to best results (Watts et al. 2017b;
Katsarov et al. 2021).
Comparing students’ mindsets in Germany and Bulgaria
The two European countries presented in this explorative study rank on the two extremes of CPI of Transparency International (
European Commission, 2020). Trust in governmental structure is high in Germany, and bribes or general corruption only rarely occur (
European Commission, 2020). Bulgaria is a postsocialist country characterised by high levels of corruption and low trust levels in public and semi-public institutions (
Rothstein 2004;
Horne 2017). There is a history of distrust in institutions in Bulgaria; the former communist regime was particularly repressive of human rights and individual freedom (
Mishler and Rose, 1997). Not only is Bulgaria’s corruption level the highest in Europe, but a large part of the Bulgarian population also sees corruption as a permanent part of their culture. Furthermore, levels of interpersonal trust are also relatively low in Bulgaria (
Rose-Ackerman, 2001, p. 438).
To compare the RI culture in Bulgaria and in Germany, we studied the country reports published by the European Network of Research Integrity Offices (ENRIO) and the national information of the European Network of Research Ethics Committees (EUREC). The ENRIO report on Germany describes the “national research ombudsman […] and the network of the local ombudspersons in research institutions” as the national institutional structure for research integrity. In Germany there is “no (legal) obligation to seek the national research ombudsman in cases of suspected research misconduct” (
ENRIO n.d.). These ombudspersons are accompanied by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and other nonuniversity research institutions such as Fraunhofer, Helmholtz Association, Leibniz Association, and Max Planck Society, which actively contribute to and promote a research integrity culture. Germany “has a total of 53 research ethics committees. These committees are established in conformity with state law, the Federal Republic has no competence for that establishment” (
EUREC n.d.).
No country report referring to stewards of integrity in Bulgaria exists (
European Science Foundation 2019;
ENRIO n.d.); therefore, no conclusions can be drawn regarding a network of RI stewards in Bulgaria. The European Network of Research Ethics Committees describes Bulgaria’s RI context only in relation to biomedical research: “
Bulgarian Health Act (Article 203) covering all biomedical research projects states that biomedical research should be conducted after receiving a positive opinion from the ethics committee established in the health care facility, scientific organization or in other institution where biomedical research is going to be conducted.” (National Information Bulgaria,
EUREC n.d.). “According to the Bulgarian Drug Law (Article 103), Ethics Committee for Multi-Centre Trials is established under the Minister of Health.” (
EUREC n.d.).
As described above, students’ cultural contexts, e.g., stewardship for integrity and transparency, differ widely between Bulgaria and Germany. However, the two countries align mostly on how their educational system determines RI/RCR in their curriculums. The website Path2Integrity (
path2integrity.eu) contains examples of curricula in which both countries include components of RCR training. None of these examples has RCR/RI as standalone courses at the secondary school level. Whereas some German examples include standalone courses for bachelor-level students, in Bulgaria RI topics are integrated into other courses at this level of study. In both countries, examples of standalone courses are listed for master and doctoral degree level.
We assume that there should be an interconnection between a country’s level of corruption/transparency and the understanding and importance of RI in that country. By comparing two countries with substantial CPI differences, we aim to explore probable contrasts in the students’ mindsets in the field of RI. In summary, the need to promote RI at HEIs is a transcultural mission across Europe. However, trainers must adapt RI training to students’ mindsets and practices. We conducted a qualitative study to explore Bulgarian and German students’ views on RI, and we focused on the intercultural and transcultural aspects of our RI facets: understanding, importance, value–action gap, enforcement approaches, and training.