ABSTRACT
The globalization of science that has transformed collaboration in laboratory and clinical research has also reshaped research education. Today, unprecedented numbers of undergraduate, graduate, professional, and postdoctoral trainees in the physical and life sciences seek formal research education and experience outside their home countries. International educational exchange and research collaboration contribute to the academic development and economic well-being of industrialized and developing nations. Many countries now compete for international students and actively encourage their citizens to study abroad (National Science Board (NSB), 2008). The multi-directional flow of science trainees and scientific knowledge around the world raises challenges for research educators, who must prepare future investigators to navigate this new environment. Among the most prominent challenges is the need to ensure the integrity of research results and promote high ethical standards among investigators, wherever and by whomever scientific research is conducted. English and mathematics are taught worldwide as the international languages of science (Montgomery, 2004; Rees, 2009), but there are no universally accepted standards of responsible research practice or research ethics, much less worldwide regulation or oversight bodies governing research collaboration across cultural or national borders. The questions of who and what to teach about research integrity gain even more importance as the growth of international research collaboration brings greater, more intensive contact among investigators in different national settings. Over the last two decades, much work has been done in the United States to determine what academic preparation is needed for research integrity, particularly as governmental agencies have recommended and even required federally funded research training programs to provide instruction in the responsible conduct of research and research ethics. Yet this process has been uneven and sometimes contentious (Steneck & Bulger, 2007), and the nascent
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field of research integrity education is still working to define its goals, methods, content, and place in the curriculum of specific fields (Kalichman, 2007; Bulger & Heitman, 2007; DuBois, Schilling, Heitman, Steneck, & Kon, 2009). Outside the United States, formal efforts to promote research integrity are at an even earlier developmental stage: in many countries attention remains focused on the essential steps of defining misconduct and establishing mechanisms for handling allegations of misbehavior, and much less heed is paid to education (Mayer & Steneck, 2007; Stainthorpe, 2007; Lempinen, 2009). As a result, trainees and faculty researchers abroad may have limited awareness and conflicting understandings of the established and emerging standards of ethical practice in their work, even as the need for cross-national consensus on such standards grows. While a global cadre of science-policy-makers now seeks common ground on standards of ethical research and structures to support responsible conduct, academic research institutions in the United States already face the practical demands of applying established U.S. standards to international collaborative research and research education. In this process, trainees, faculty investigators, and institutional administrators can easily become caught in webs of competing and conflicting customs, policy, and regulation from which there is no easy exit.
