ETHICS, INTEGRITY, & LEGAL ISSUES

All research students and their supervisors are responsible for understanding the ANU Policy: Responsible conduct of research and the supplementary Code of Research Conduct. These policies cover topics such as the appropriate management of data, supervision of students, dissemination of research findings, attribution of authorship, and conflicts of interest.

Research Integrity covers issues of academic conduct, privacy, and public perception of the University’s research integrity. All students must complete research integrity online training within three months of the commencement of your candidature. The training is mandatory for HDR students, constitutes one of your milestones, and no further milestones can be completed until this milestone is finalised. NB: This is not the same as the human ethics training on ARIES, which is attended prior to completing the human ethics research protocol application (see below). To undertake this training, click on the relevant milestone item in your ISIS.

​

Research Integrity Advisors are available to assist you and to give confidential advice about what constitutes misconduct in research, the rights and responsibilities of a potential complainant, and the procedures for dealing with allegations of research misconduct within the University. See the ANU’s Research integrity training pages for more information and make sure you are familiar with the ANU Policy: Responsible conduct of research and the supplementary Code of Research Conduct.

The ANU Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) and local sub-committees have been set up to consider the ethical implications of proposals for human research in all disciplines. You need to apply for human ethics review if, in the course of your research, you intend to conduct research that involves human subjects. This includes research where you intend to administer surveys or questionnaires, conduct interviews or focus groups, undertake participant observation, or similar. Any data that you collect without first having ethics clearance cannot be used as part of your research. Similarly, you cannot retrospectively apply for ethics clearance.

​

Obtaining ethics clearance is a time-consuming process and allowance for this needs to be built into your research plans. It can take months, for example, if your proposal is high risk and has to go to the main ethics committee, and the committee asks for amendments to be made. Bear in mind that approval is not automatic and the committee may ask for revisions. If the committee has serious concerns it will ask the researcher to resubmit their application to be considered at the next meeting.

​

You can apply for ethics approval without first having presented your First PhD thesis seminar and thesis proposal review (TPR) seminar; however, most students work on both their ethics approval and their TPR seminar concurrently. Please note that if you receive ethics approval before you have given your TPR, and your panel requires changes to your research proposal, you could well have to apply for ethics approval again. We strongly encourage you to complete your TPR and ethics approval as well as your Research Integrity Training within the first year of your degree.

​

Before applying for human ethics review, you should familiarise yourself with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2018) and you will need to be added to a reasearch team in REMS, the research ethics management system. In the first instance, ask your supervisor to add you to their team in REMS. If they don’t have a team already established, they will have to contact human.ethics.officer@anu.edu.au and ask to have a team/project created for them. They will need to provide their name, uni ID, school name, college name, and department name. ​In the first instance, your supervisor will be the principal investigator, and you will be the investigator. ​Following this, your supervisor will need  change the roles assigned to the project, making you principal investigator (PI).  Watch a video that explains the steps required.

Before applying for human ethics review, you should familiarise yourself with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2018). For information on human ethics training please see the ANU's Research Ethics, Integrity & Compliance webpage. You should also check out the Before you begin info and direct any inquiries about your project to the human research ethics officer.

Be aware that ANU takes academic honesty very seriously. You may be dismissed from the degree if you engage in cheating, collusion, fabrication, plagiarism, recycling, or poor academic practice. Several policies, procedures, and guidelines relate to academic honesty at ANU. You must know what is contained in these documents and how these may affect your academic results. If you are unsure about your academic practices, book an appointment to discuss things with the Crawford PhD Academic and Research Skills Advisor.

​

For more information, see academic skills info on academic integrity, the ANU’s pages on Academic integrity breaches, as well as legislation under the Academic Misconduct Rule 2021.

Research students are not beyond plagiarism. A lot of plagiarism occurs inadvertently, maybe because you didn’t keep track of your notes and references properly, because you were feeling time constraints to get a paper finished, or because you were lazy in your copying and pasting. The key thing is that you avoid plagiarisim in the first place, so if you have any doubts about the appropriateness or otherwise of your scholarly practices, then book in to see the PhD Academic and Research Skills Advisor. Of course, if you’re simply being dishonest through collusion, recycling, cheating, fabrication, and such like, then you will be kicked out of the degree for misconduct.

​

Further information is available on the ANU’s Academic honesty and plagiarism website.