Safeguarding Good Scientific Practice

Good scientific practice means that researchers comply with certain rules regarding their work activities and behaviour in order to uphold scientific honesty and integrity. These rules aim to ensure respectful and fair dealings amongst researchers as well as to prevent scientific malpractice.

Self-regulation is one aspect of good scientific practice that is inherent to our research culture, and which reflects the recommendations of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) as follows: "Higher education institutions and non-HEI  research institutions,  with the participation of their members, work together to defining rules of good research practice, ensure that their employees are made aware of these guidelines and related policies and regulations, and require their employees to comply with them with due regard for the type of research undertaken in the relevant subject area." (Code of Conduct "Guidelines for Safeguarding Good Research Practice", DFG 2019)

The General Assembly of the Leibniz Association passed "Guidelines for Good Scientific Practice in the Leibniz Association" in November 2015. They were updated 2019. In particular, the guideline sets out the role and powers of the Association's board of trust, as well as the procedural rules and sanctioning possibilities for the audit procedure. Nonetheless, all single Leibniz organizations are called upon to develop their own guidelines and regulate their decentralized procedures. In 2021, the Leibniz member institutions also adopted the Leibniz Code for Good Research Practice, which - in implementation of the relevant DFG regulations - comprehensively describes the area of scientific integrity and updates the existing standards in a binding manner. In addition, the Leibniz Association has issued a recommendation on safeguarding good scientific practice in co-authorships, which specifies the authorship criteria laid down in the Leibniz Guidelines and the Leibniz Code.

Our work is governed by "Rules to safeguard good scientific practice", which implement the recommendations of the DFG and of the Leibniz Association. These includes the rule that every research institute should appoint persons of trust – so-called ombudspersons – whose task is to advise researchers in questions of good scientific practice and to investigate accusations of scientific malpractice. The Institute Director is responsible for the drawing-up and implementation of rules on good scientific practice.