Press Release

Agency for Scientific Integrity launched

Key actors in Austria's scientific community agree on establishment of Agency for Scientific Integrity

In an inaugural meeting held yesterday at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, the statutes of the support association underlying the Agency for Scientific Integrity were approved. This step completed the formal process of establishing this new and independent institution. The Agency for Scientific Integrity was set up as an association in accordance with the Austrian Associations Act. Its founding members comprise 12 Austrian universities, the Austrian Academy of Sciences, as well as the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), I.S.T. Austria and the FWF.

Universities and institutions of higher education, research grant organizations as well as other organizations supporting scholarly research can be ordinary members of the association, which underscores the fact that the agency is founded on the ability of institutions to regulate themselves in this respect.

The agency will be responsible for investigating alleged cases of scientific misconduct in Austria in a professional manner and for evaluating those cases on the basis of its investigations. The evaluation task will be assigned to an independent body consisting of highly distinguished scholars from abroad. This body will be known as the Commission for Scientific Integrity.

Upon nomination by the Austrian Science Council, each member of the commission will be appointed by the association's General Assembly for a term of two years. The commission will comprise a total of six members covering key branches of science and research (humanities, social sciences, life sciences, medicine, natural sciences and technology). In addition, the commission will have one advising member with expertise in the field of Austrian law. In the process of establishing the association, a list of distinguished scientists from abroad was compiled on the basis of nominations by the Austrian Science Council, and those scientists will be invited to serve on the commission.

The agency will also include an operational unit to provide the necessary support for the commission's activities. The main task of this unit will be to prepare cases submitted to the commission for decision-making.

The Agency for Scientific Integrity is neither a decision-making body nor an organizational unit with adjudicative powers. It will be responsible for offering a neutral and factual platform for investigating (alleged) cases of scientific misconduct thoroughly and objectively. The persons and institutions concerned will be able to use this new and independent body as a resource in order to obtain unbiased, reliable information on how to evaluate potential cases of misconduct. The normative power of the commission's work will result from its unprejudiced, objective review of cases and should make the commission an important benchmark for scientific integrity in Austria.

The establishment of the Agency for Scientific Integrity is an excellent example of the fact that initiatives for improving general conditions for science and research can very well originate from the bottom up. This requires high awareness of the problem among all of the parties concerned and basic consensus regarding the idea that the ability of institutions to regulate themselves is a tenable foundation for the scientific community.

With regard to combating scientific misconduct, Austria exhibits a number of clearly perceivable structural deficits. The establishment of the Agency for Scientific Integrity should bring about substantial improvements in this area. From the standpoint of science policy, the importance of this step was confirmed by the inclusion of this initiative in the government's program at the beginning of this week.

Vienna, December 2, 2008

Inquiries
Mag. Stefan Bernhardt

List of institutions participating in the inaugural meeting of the Agency for Scientific Integrity:
Vienna University
Medical University of Vienna
Medical University of Graz
University of Salzburg
Graz University of Technology
University of Leoben
University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna
University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna
Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration
University of Applied Arts Vienna
University of Music and Performing Arts Graz
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF)
I.S.T. Austria

Support association board members (in alphabetical order):
Christoph Badelt (Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration)
Christoph Kratky (FWF; Chairman)
Peter Schuster (Austrian Academy of Sciences)
Josef Smolle (Medical University of Graz)
Georg Winckler (Vienna University; Deputy Chairman)
Heribert Wulz (Universities Austria)

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