A former doctoral candidate completed their doctoral dissertation at a faculty at UiO. The candidate’s former supervisor complained to the faculty due to deficiencies in a co-authorship declaration included in the dissertation. The faculty conducted an independent assessment and then asked The Research Ethics Committee at UiO (REC) to determine whether this constituted a breach of recognized research ethical norms.
The first condition for scientific misconduct is that an actual breach of research ethics has occurred, which was the initial focus of REC's examination. The former candidate acknowledged responsibility for omitting a sentence in the co-authorship declaration that pertained to the supervisor’s contribution to certain experiments. The question was whether the omission was intentional with the aim of tarnishing the supervisor’s reputation, and thereby an act of faulty research ethics.
REC believed that the sentence in question was almost scientifically insignificant in relation to the candidate’s substantial and individual contributions to the work. It was unlikely that the candidate would deliberately omit information about the supervisor’s contributions, especially since the risk of negative consequences was high. Additionally, REC noted that the co-authorship declaration had been revised several times and existed in different versions, which could contribute to confusion and mix-ups. Three co-authors had themselves overlooked the error. Based on this, REC found the candidate’s explanation that the omission was due to an oversight during a stressful period to be credible.
REC then assessed whether the error could have influenced the evaluation of the doctoral dissertation. After reviewing the evaluation committee’s justification, which placed primary emphasis on the candidate’s significant contributions to the relevant text, they concluded that the committee was most concerned with the co-authors’ roles in the sections where the candidate was not the first author.
REC concluded that there had been no breaches of recognized research ethical norms and that nothing undermined the validity of the dissertation.
REC’s conclusion was unanimous.
References
- The Norwegian Research Ethics Act (2017) Section 8
- Regulations for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) at the University of Oslo (2010), especially Section 10.1
- Supplementary rules at the relevant faculty to the Regulations for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor (PhD) at the University of Oslo
- The Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics in Science and Technology (NENT): Guidelines for Research Ethics in Science and Technology (2015) Section 5
The text has been translated and improved by UiO GPT.
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