Document J32kV8LoZ9b4G4yKOvvkgn7ZK

On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http;/iwww,.nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1 .html Copyright 1995, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved ON BEING A SCIENTIST Responsible conduct in research COMIYITTFF UN SriFNU, ENGINEERING, AND PuillC PoilLY Nationai Ai Ari'w it S, ienci s N*m\AI ArADFMC OF Engineering INSTIIUTI of Mfdicinf national academy press Washington, D.C. 1995 Copyright 1995 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. This document may be reproduced solely for educational purposes without the written permission of the National Academy of Sciences. NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS 2101 Constitution Av., NW Washington. DC 20418 NOTICE. This volume was produced as part of a project approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. It is a result of work done by the Committee on Science, :Engineering, and Public Policy (COSEPUP) which has authorized its release to the pub lic. This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to pro cedures approved by COSEPUP and the Report Review Committee. FINANCIAL SUPPORT: The development of this document was supported by grants from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Alfred P.SIoan Foundation.Support for dissemination of this document was provided by the following corporations and dis ciplinary societies: Bristol Myers Squibb Company. Glaxo Research Institute. SmithKIine Beecham Corp., Sigma Xi, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the American Society for Microbiology, the American Chemical Society, the American Institute for Biological Sciences, the American Sociological Association, the American Statistical Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society. Additional support was provided by the Basic Science Fund of the National Academy of Sciences, whose contributors include the AT&T Foundation, Atlantic Richfield Foundation, BP America, Dow Chemical Company, E.l. du Pont de Nemours & Co., IBM Corporation, Merck and Company, Inc., Monsanto Company, and Shell Oil Companies Foundation. INTERNET ACCESS: This report is available on the National Academy of Sciences' Internet host. It may be accessed via World Wide Web at http://www.nas.edu. via Gopher at gopher.nas.edu, or via FTP at ftp.nas.edu. DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - Additional copies of "On Being a Scientist" are available as follows: QUANTITY 1 2-9 10 or more PRICE $5.00 each $4.00 each $2.50 each Order from: National Academy Press, 2101 Constitution Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20418. All orders must be prepaid with delivery to a single address. No additional discounts apply. Prices are subject to change without notice. To order by credit card, call 1-800-624-6242. ON THE COVER: The cover depicts the names of some of the scientists who have been awarded the Nobel Prize. The design of the cover and the report was done by Isely &/or Clark Design. 132 PHOTOCRAPH CREDITS: CalaR Alto Observatory (page 16); Ira Wexler/College of Engineering/University of Maryland (Page 12); National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health (Page 25); U.S. Department of Agriculture (Pages 1. 2,4. 6. 8,13,23). International Standard Book Number 0-309-05196-7 Printed in the United States of America. First Printing, January 1995 Second Printing, June 1995 Third Printing, April 1996 COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND PUBLIC POLICY PHILLIP A. GRIFFITHS (Chair), Director, Institute for Advanced Study ROBERT McCORMICK ADAMs Secretary Emeritus, Smithsonian Institution BRUCE M. ALBERTS President, National Academy of Sciences ELKAN R. BLOUT Harkness Professor, Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School Felix E. BROWDER University Professor, Department of Mathematics, Rutgers University DAVID R. CHALLONER, M.D. Vice President of Health Affairs, University of Florida ALBERT F. COTTON Distinguished Professor of Chemistry (term ending 6/94) ELLIS B. COWLING Director, Southern Oxidants Study, School of Forest Resources, North Carolina State University BERNARD N. FIELDS, M.D. Adele Lehman Professor; Chairman, Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics. Harvard Medical School ALEXANDER H. FLAX Senior Fellow, National Academy of Engineering RALPH E. GOMORY President, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation THOMAS D.LARSON Consultant MARY J. OSBORN Head, Department of Microbiology, University of Connecticut Health Center C. KUMAR N. PATEL . Vice Chancellor, Research Programs, University of California, Los Angeles (term ending 6/94) PHILLIP A. SHARP Head, Department of Biology, Center for Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology KENNETH I. SHINE President, Institute of Medicine ROBERT M. SOLOW Institute Professor, Department of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (term ending 6/94). H. GUYFORD STEVER Member, Carnegie Commission On Science and Technology (term ending 6/94) MORRIS TANENBAUM Vice President, National Academy of Engineering ROBERT M. WHITE President, National Academy of Engineering LAWRENCE E. McCRAY Executive Director PRINCIPAL PROJECT STAFF STEVE OLSON, Consultant/Writer DEBORAH D. STINE, Project Director DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES PREFACE he scientific research enterprise, like other human activities, is built on a foundation Tof trust. Scientists trust that the results reported by others are valid. Society trusts that the results of research reflect an honest attempt by scientists to describe the world accurately and without bias. The level of trust that has characterized science and its relationship with society has contributed to a period of unparalleled scientific produc tivity. But this trust will endure only if the scientific community devotes exemplifying and transmitting the values associated with ethical scientific conduct. In the past, young scientists learned the ethics of research largely through informal means-by working with senior scientists and watching how they dealt with ethical ques tions. That tradition is still vitally important. But science has become so complex and so closely intertwined with society's needs that a more formal introduction to research ethics and the responsibilities that these commitments imply is also needed-an intro duction that can supplement the informal lessons provided by research supervisors and mentors. The original "On Being a Scientist," published by the National Academy of Sciences in 1989, was designed to meet that need. Written for beginning researchers it sought to describe the ethical foundations of scientific practices and some of the personal and professional issues that researchers encounter in their work. It was meant to apply to all forms of research-whether in academic, industrial, or governmental settings-and to all scientific disciplines. Over 200,000 copies of the booklet were distributed to graduate and undergraduate science students. It continues to be used today in courses, semi nars, and informal discussions. Much has happened in the six years since "On Being a Scientist" first appeared. Research institutions and federal agencies have developed important new policies for dealing with behaviors that violate the ethical standards of science. A distinguished panel convened by the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine issued a major report on research conduct entitled Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process. Continued questions have reemphasized the importance of the ethical decisions that researchers must make. To reflect the developments of the last six years, the National Academy complex is issuing this new version of "On Being a Scientist." This version incorporates new mate rial from Responsible Science and other rectal reports. It reflects suggestions from read- 1 ers of the original booklet, from instructors who used the original booklet in their class es and seminars, and from graduate students and professors who critiqued drafts of the revision. This version of "On Being a Scientist" also includes a number of hypothetical scenarios, which have proved in recent years to provide an effective means of present ing research ethics. An appendix at the end of the booklet offers guidance in thinking about and discussing these scenarios, but the scenarios remain essentially openended. As is the case for the entire document, input from readers is welcomed. Though "On Being a Scientist" is aimed primarily at graduate students and beginning researchers, its lessons apply to all scientists at all stages of their scientific careers. In particular, senior scientists have a special responsibility in upholding the highest stan dards for conduct, serving as role models for students and young scientists, designing educational programs, and responding to alleged violations of ethical norms. Senior sci entists can themselves gain a new appreciation for the importance of ethical issues by discussing with their students what had previously been largely tacit knowledge. In the process, they help provide the leadership that is essential for high standards of conduct to be maintained. The original "On Being a Scientist" was produced under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences by the Committee on the Conduct of Science, which consisted of Robert McCormick Adams, Francisco Ayala (chairman), Mary-Dell Chilton, Gerald Holton, David Hull, Kumar Patel, Frank Press, Michael Ruse, and Phillip Sharp. Several members of that committee were involved directly in the revision of the booklet, and the 134 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - others were consulted during the revision and reviewed the resulting document. This new version of the booklet was prepared under the auspices of the Committee ACKNOWLEDGMENTS on Science, Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. The revision was overseen by a The committee thanks the graduate guidance group consisting of Robert McCormick Adams, David Challoner, Bernard Fields, Kumar Patel, Frank Press, and Phillip Sharp (group chairman). students of Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of The future of science depends on attracting outstanding young people to research- California, Irvine, who participated not only people of enormous energy and talent but people of strong character who will be tomorrow's leaders. It is incumbent on all scientists and all administrators of science to help provide a research environment that, through its adherence to high ethical stan in focus group sessions which provided invaluable feedback on earlier drafts of the document, as well as Charles Cantor, Frank dards and creative productivity, will attract and retain individuals of outstanding intellect and character to one of society's most important professions. Solomon, and F. Sherwood Rowland, who sponsored those sessions at the respective BRUCE ALBERTS President, National Academy of Sciences institutions. KENNETH SHINE President, Institute of Medicine ROBERT WHITE President, National Academy of Engineering In addition, the committee thanks a number of individuals who teach research ethics and provided guidance on earlier drafts as to the "teachability" of the document, A NOTE ON USING THIS BOOKLET especially: Joan Steitz, Caroline Whitbeck. Penny Gilmer, Michael his booklet makes the point that scientific knowledge is defined collectively through Tdiscussion and debate. Collective deliberation is also the best procedure to apply Zigmond. Frank Solomon, and Indira Nair. Finally, the committee thanks its in using this booklet. Group discussion-whether in seminars, orientations, research set able staff: Steve Olson, science tings, or informal settings-can demonstrate how different individuals would react in spe cific situations, often leading to conclusions that no one would have arrived at individ ually. writer, whose help in drafting this revision was invaluable: Deborah Stine, who managed the project and ran the focus groups on the These observations apply with particular force to the hypothetical scenarios in this document; and Jeffrey Peck and booklet. Each scenario concludes with a series of questions, but these questions have many answers-some better, some worse-rather than a single right answer. An appendix Patrick Sevcik, who provided administrative support at various stages at the end of this booklet examines specific issues involved in several of the scenarios as a way of suggesting possible topics for consideration and discussion. This booklet bas been prepared for use in many different settings, including : Classes on research ethics Classes on research methods or statistics Classes on the history, sociology, or philosophy of science Seminars to discuss research practices or results Meetings sponsored by scientific societies on a local, regional, or national level Meetings held to develop ethics, policies or guidelines for a specific laboratory or institution Orientation sessions Journal clubs A useful format in any of these situations is to have a panel discussion involving three or four researchers who are at different stages of their careers for example, a graduate student, a postdoctoral fellow, a junior faculty member, and a senior faculty member. Such panels can identify the ambiguities in a problem situation, devise ways to get the information needed to resolve the ambiguities, and demonstrate the full range of per spectives that Eire involved in ethical deliberations. They can also show how institution al policies and resources can influence an individual's response to a given situation, which will emphasize the importance for all researchers to know what those institution al policies and resources are. Finally, discussion of these issues with a broad range of researchers can demon strate that research ethics is not a complete and finalized body of knowledge. These issues are still being discussed, explored, and debated, and all researchers have a responsibility to move the discussion forward. DO CUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES FWTT1CIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES 135 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct In Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww,.nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1 .html Copyright 1995, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved CONTENTS 1 Introduction 3 The Social Foundations of Science 4 Experimental Techniques and the Treatment of Data 6 Values in Science 8 Conflicts of Interest 9 Publication and Openness 12 The Allocation of Credit 13 Authorship Practices 15 Error and Negligence in Science 16 Misconduct in Science 18 Responding to Violations of Ethical Standards 20 The Scientist in Society 22 Bibliography 25 Appendix: Discussion of Case Studies INTRODUCTION he geneticist Barbara McClintock once said of her research, "1 was just so interest Ted in what I was doing I could hardly wait to get up in the morning and get at it. One of my friends, a geneticist, said I was a child, because only children can't wait to get up in the morning to get at what they want to do." Anyone who has experienced the childlike wonder evoked by observing or under standing something that no one has ever observed or understood before will recognize McClintock's enthusiasm. The pursuit of that experience is one of the forces that keep researchers rooted to their laboratory benches, climbing through the undergrowth of a sweltering jungle, or following the threads of a difficult theoretical problem. To succeed in research is a personal triumph that earns and deserves individual recognition. But it is also a communal achievement, for in learning something new the discoverer both draws on and contributes to the body of knowledge held in common by all scientists. Scientific research offers many other satisfactions in addition to the exhilaration of discovery. Researchers have the opportunity to associate with colleagues who have made important contributions to human knowledge, with peers who think deeply and care passionately about subjects of common interest, and with students who can be counted on to challenge assumptions. With many important developments occurring in areas where disciplines overlap, scientists have many opportunities to work with differ ent people, explore new fields, and broaden their expertise. Researchers often have considerable freedom both in choosing what to investigate and in deciding how to organize their professional and personal lives. They are part of a community based on ideals of trust and freedom, where hard work and achievement are recognized as deserving the highest rewards. And their work can have a direct and immediate impact on society, which ensures that the public will have an interest in the findings and impli cations of research. Research can entail frustrations and disappointments as well as satisfactions. An experiment may fail because of poor design, technical complications, or the sheer intractability of nature. A favored hypothesis may turn out to be incorrect after consum ing months of effort. Colleagues may disagree over the validity of experimental data, the 1 interpretation of results, or credit for work done. Difficulties such as these are virtually impossible to avoid in science. They can strain the composure of the beginning and senior scientist alike. Yet struggling with them can also be a spur to important progress. Scientific progress and changes in the relationship between science and society are creating new challenges for the scientific community. The numbers of trained researchers and exciting research opportunities have grown faster than have available financial resources, which has increased the pressure on the research system and on individual scientists. Research endeavors are becoming larger, more complex and more expensive, creating new kinds of situations and relationships among researchers. The conduct of research is more closely monitored and regulated than it was in the past. The part played by science in society has become more promi nent and more complex, with consequences that are both invigorating and stressful. To non-scientists, the rich interplay of competition, elation, frustration, and coopera tion at the frontiers of scientific research seems paradoxical. Science results in knowl edge that is often presented as being fixed and universal. Yet scientific knowledge obvi ously emerges from a process that is intensely human, a process indelibly shaped by human virtues, values, and limitations and by societal contexts. How is the limited, sometimes fallible, work of individual scientists converted into the enduring edifice of scientific knowledge? The answer lies partly in the relationship between human knowledge and the physi- DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 136 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (199s) http;/iwww..nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1.html Copyright 1995, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved cal world. Science has progressed through a uniquely productive marriage of human creativity and hard-nosed skepticism, of openness to new scientific contributions and persistent questioning of those contributions and the existing scientific consensus. Based on their observations and their ideas about the world, researchers make new observations and develop new ideas that seem to describe the physical, biological, or social world more accurately or completely. Scientists engaged in applied research may have more utilitarian aims, such as improving the reliability of a semiconductor chip. But the ultimate effect of their work is the same: they are able to make claims about the world that are subject to empirical tests. The empirical objectivity of scientific claims is not the whole story, however. As will be described in a moment, the reliability of scientific knowledge also derives partly from the interactions among scientists themselves. In engaging in these social interactions, researchers must call on much more than just their scientific understanding of the world. They must also be able to convince a community of peers of the correctness of their concepts, which requires a fine understanding of the methods, techniques, and social conventions of science. By considering many of the hard decisions that researchers make in the course of their work, this booklet examines both the epistemological and social dimensions of sci entific research. It looks at such questions as: How should anomalous data be treated? How do values influence research? How should credit for scientific accomplishments be allocated? What are the borderlines between honest error, negligent error, and miscon duct in science? These questions are of interest to more than just the scientific community. As the influence of scientific knowledge has grown throughout society, non-scientists have acquired a greater interest in assessing the validity of the claims of science. With sci ence becoming an increasingly important social institution, scientists have become more accountable to the broader society that expects to benefit from their work. DOCUMENT STHICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - THE SOCIAL FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE "Scientists are people of hroughout the history of science, philosophers and scientists have sought to Tdescribe a single systematic procedure that can be used to generate scientific very dissimilar temperaments doing knowledge, but they have never been completely successful. The practice of science is different things in very too multifaceted and its practitioners are too diverse to be captured in a single overar ching description. Researchers collect and analyze data, develop hypotheses, replicate and extend earlier work, communicate their results with others, review and critique the results of their peers, train and supervise associates and students, and otherwise engage in the life of the scientific community. Science is also far from a self-contained or self-sufficient enterprise. Technological developments critically influence science, as when a new device, such as a telescope, microscope, rocket, or computer, opens up whole new areas of inquiry. Societal forces also affect the directions of research, greatly complicating descriptions of scientific progress. different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers up ; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are post-scientists and even a few mystics." Another factor that confounds analyses of the scientific process is the tangled rela tionship between individual knowledge and social knowledge in science. At the heart of the scientific experience is individual insight into the workings of nature. Many of the outstanding achievements in the history of science grew out of the struggles and suc Peter MEDAWAR, Plato's Republic, Oxford University Press, New York,1982. p. 116 cesses of individual scientists who were seeking to make sense of the world. At the same time, science is inherently a social enterprise-in sharp contrast to a popu lar stereotype of science as a lonely, isolated search for the truth. With few exceptions, scientific research cannot be done without drawing on the work of others or collaborating 137 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww..nap.edu/openbooky0309051967/html/R1.html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved with others. It inevitably takes place within a broad social and historical context, which gives substance, direction, and ultimately meaning to the work of individual scientists. The object of research is to extend human knowledge of the physical, biological, or social world beyond what is already known. But an individual's knowledge properly enters the domain of science only after it is presented to others in such a fashion that they can independently judge its validity. This process occurs in many different ways. Researchers talk to their colleagues and supervisors in laboratories, in hallways, and over the telephone. They trade data and speculations over computer networks. They give presentations at seminars and conferences. They write up their results and send them to scientific journals, which in turn send the papers to be scrutinized by review ers. After a paper is published or a finding is presented, it is judged by other scientists in the context of what they already know from other sources. Throughout this continu um of discussion and deliberation the ideas of individuals are collectively judged, sort ed, and selectively incorporated into the consensual but ever evolving scientific world view. In the process, individual knowledge is gradually converted into generally accept ed knowledge. This ongoing process of review and revision is critically important. It minimizes the influence of individual subjectivity by requiring that research results be accepted by other scientists. It also is a powerful inducement for researchers to be critical of their own conclusions because they know that their objective must be to try to convince their ablest colleagues. The social mechanisms of science do more than validate what comes to be known as scientific knowledge. They also help generate and sustain the body of experimental techniques, social conventions, and other "methods'' that scientists use in doing and reporting research. Some of these methods are permanent features of science; others evolve over time or vary from discipline to discipline. Because they reflect socially accepted standards in science, their application is a key element of responsible scien tific practice. DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS A U X REFLEXIVES - EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES AND THE TREATMENT OF DATA CM ne goal of methods is to facilitate the independent verification of scientific obser Ovations. Thus, many experimental techniques-such as statistical tests of signifi cance, double-blind trials, or proper phrasing of questions on surveys-have been designed to minimize the influence of individual bias in research. By adhering to these techniques, researchers produce results that others can more easily reproduce, which promotes the acceptance of those results into the scientific consensus. If research in a given area does not use generally accepted methods, other scientists will be less likely to accept the results. This was one of several reasons why many sci entists reacted negatively to the initial reports of cold fusion in the late 1980s. The claims were so physically implausible that they required extraordinary proof. But the experiments were not initially presented in such a way that other investigators could corroborate or disprove them. When the experimental techniques became widely known and were replicated, belief in cold fusion quickly faded. In some cases the methods used to arrive at scientific knowledge are not very well defined. Consider the problem of distinguishing the "facts" at the forefront of a given area of science. In such circumstances experimental techniques are often pushed to the limit, the signal is difficult to separate from the noise, unknown sources of error abound, and even the question to be answered is not well defined. In such an uncertain and fluid situation, picking out reliable data from a mass of confusing and sometimes contradic tory observations can be extremely difficult. In this stage of an investigation, researchers have to be extremely clear, both to 138 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww..nap,edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1.html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved themselves and to others, about the methods being used to gather and analyze data. Other scientists will be judging not only the validity of the data but also the validity and accuracy of the methods used to derive those data. The development of new methods can be a controversial process, as scientists seek to determine whether a given method can serve as a reliable source of new information. If someone is not forthcoming about the procedures used to derive a new result, the validation of that result by others will be hampered. Methods are important in science, but like scientific knowledge itself, they are not infallible. As they evolve over time, better methods supersede less powerful or less acceptable ones. Methods and scientific knowledge thus progress in parallel, with each area of knowledge contributing to the other. A good example of the fallibility of methods occurred in astronomy in the early part of the twentieth century. One of the most ardent debates in astronomy at that time con cerned the nature of what were then known as spiral nebulae-diffuse pinwheels of light that powerful telescopes revealed to be quite common in the night sky. Some astronomers thought that these nebulae were spiral galaxies like the Milky Way at such great distances from the earth that individual stars could not be distinguished. Others believed that they were clouds of gas within our own galaxy. One astronomer who thought that spiral nebulae were within the Milky Way, Adriaan van Maanen of the Mount Wilson Observatory, sought to resolve the issue by compar ing photographs of the nebulae taken several years apart. After making a series of painstaking measurements, van Maanen announced that he had found roughly consis tent unwinding motions in the nebulae. The detection of such motions indicated that the spirals had to be within the Milky Way, since motions would be impossible to detect in distant objects. Van Maanen's reputation caused many astronomers to accept a galactic location for the nebulae. A few years later, however, van Maanen's colleague Edwin Hubble, using the new 100-inch telescope at Mount Wilson, conclusively demonstrated that the neb ulae were in fact distant galaxies; van Maanen's observations had to be wrong. Studies of van Maanen's procedures have not revealed any intentional misrepresentation or sources of systematic error. Rather, he was working at the limits of observational accu racy, and his expectations influenced his measurements. DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 2004 THE SELECTION OF DATA Deborah, a third-year graduate student, and Kathleen, a post-doc, have made a series of meas urements on a new experimental semiconductor material using an expensive neutron source at a national laboratory. When they get back to their own laboratory and examine the data, they get the following data points. A newly proposed theory predicts results indicated by the curve. During the measurements at the national labora tory, Deborah and Kathleen observed that there were power fluctuations they could not control or predict. Furthermore, they discussed their work with another group doing similar experiments, and they knew that the other group had gotten results confirming the theoretical prediction and was writ ing a manuscript describing their results. In writing up their own results for publication, Kathleen suggests dropping the two anomalous data points near the abscissa (the solid squares) from the published graph and from a statistical analysis. She proposes that the existence of the data points be mentioned in the paper as possibly due to power fluctuations and being outside the expected standard deviation calculated from the remaining data points. "These two runs," she argues to Deborah, "were obviously wrong". JL How should the data from the two suspected runs be handled? 2, Should the data be included in tests of statistical significance and why? 1 What other sources of information, in addition to their faculty advisor, can Deborah and Kathleen use to help decide? 139 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww..nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1.html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved Though van Maanen turned out to be wrong, he was not ethically at fault. He was using methods that were accepted by the astronomical community as the best available at the time, and his results were accepted by most astronomers. But in hindsight he relied on a technique so susceptible to observer effects that even a careful investigator could be misled. The fallibility of methods is a valuable reminder of the importance of skepticism in science. Scientific knowledge and scientific methods, whether old or new, must be con tinually scrutinized for possible errors. Such skepticism can conflict with other impor tant features of science, such as the need for creativity and for conviction in arguing a given position. But organized and searching skepticism as well as an openness to new ideas are essential to guard against the intrusion of dogma or collective bias into sci entific results. VALUES IN SCIENCE cientists bring more than just a toolbox of techniques to their work. Scientists must Salso make complex decisions about the interpretation of data, about which prob lems to pursue, and about when to conclude an experiment. They have to decide the best ways to work with others and exchange information. Taken together, these matters of judgment contribute greatly to the craft of science, and the character of a person's individual decisions helps determine that person's scientific style (as well as, on occa sion, the impact of that person's work). Much of the knowledge and skill needed to make good decisions in science is learned through personal experience and interactions with other scientists. But some of this ability is hard to teach or even describe. Many of the intangible influences on sci entific discovery-curiosity, intuition, creativity-largely defy rational analysis, yet they are among the tools that scientists bring to their work. When judgment is recognized as a scientific tool, it is easier to see how science can be influenced by values. Consider, for example, the way people judge between com peting hypotheses. In a given area of science, several different explanations may | account for the available facts equally well, with each suggesting an alternate route for further research. How do researchers pick among them? Scientists and philosophers have proposed several criteria by which promising sci entific hypotheses can be distinguished from less fruitful ones. Hypotheses should be internally consistent so that they do not generate contradictory conclusions. Their abil ity to provide accurate experimental predictions, sometimes in areas far removed from the original domain of the hypothesis, is viewed with great favor. With disciplines in which experimentation is less straightforward, such as geology, astronomy, or many of the social sciences, good hypotheses should be able to unify disparate observations. Also highly prized are simplicity and its more refined cousin, elegance. Other kinds of values also come into play in science. Historians, sociologists, and other students of science have shown that social and personal beliefs-including philo sophical, thematic, religious, cultural, political, and economic beliefs can shape scien tific judgment in fundamental ways. For example, Einstein's rejection of quantum mechanics as an irreducible description of nature-summarized in his insistence that "God does not play dice"-seems to have been based largely on an aesthetic conviction that the physical universe could not contain such an inherent component of random ness. The nineteenth-century geologist Charles Lyell, who championed the idea that geological change occurs incrementally rather than catastrophically, may have been influenced as much by his religious views as by his geological observations. He favored the notion of a God who is an unmoved mover and does not intervene in His creation. 140 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/!www.,nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/htrnS/R1.html Copyright 1995, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved Such a God, thought Lyell, would produce a world in which the same causes and effects keep cycling eternally, producing a uniform geological history. Does holding such values harm a person's science? In some cases the answer has to be "yes." The history of science offers a number of episodes in which social or per sonal beliefs distorted the work of researchers. The field of eugenics used the tech niques of science to try to demonstrate the inferiority of certain races. The ideological rejection of Mendelian genetics in the Soviet Union beginning in the 1930s crippled Soviet biology for decades. Despite such cautionary episodes, it is clear that values cannot -and should not- be separated from science. The desire to do good work is a human value. So is the con viction that standards of honesty and objectivity need to be maintained. The belief that the universe is simple and coherent has led to great advances In science. If researchers did not believe that the world can be described in terms of a relatively small number of fundamental principles, science would amount to no more than organized observation. Religious convictions about the nature of the universe have also led to important scien tific insights, as in the case of Lyell discussed above. POLYWATER AND THE ROLE OF SKEPTICISM The case of polywater demonstrates how the desire to believe in a new phenomenon can sometimes overpower the demand for solid, well controlled evidence. In 1966 the Soviet scientist Boris Valdimirovich Derjaguin lectured in England on a new form of water that he claimed had been discovered by another Soviet scientist, N.N. Fedyakin. Formed by heating water and letting it con dense in quartz capillaries, this "anomalous water", as it was originally called, had a den sity higher than normal water, a viscosity 15 times that of normal water, a boiling point higher than 100 degrees Centigrade, and a freezing point lower than zero degree. Over the next several years, hundreds of papers appeared in the scientific literature describing the properties of what soon came to be known as polywater. Theorist^ developed models, supported by some experimental measurements, in which strong hydrogen bonds were causing water to polymerize. Some even warned that if polywater escaped from the laboratory, it could autocatalytically polymerize all of the world's water. Then the case for polywater began to crumble.Because polywater could only be formed in minuscule capillaries, very little was available for analysis. When small sam ples were analyzed, polywater proved to be contaminated with a variety of other sub stances, from silicon to phospholipids. Electron microscopy revealed that polywa ter actually consisted of finely divided partic ulate matter suspended in ordinary water. Gradually, the scientists who had described the properties of polywater admit ted that it did not exist. They had been mis led by poorly controlled experiments and problems with experimental procedures. As the problems were resolved and experiments gained better controls, evidence for the exis tence of polywater disappeared. DO CUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 2004 The empirical link between scientific knowledge and the physical, biological, and social world constrains the influence of values in science. Researchers are continually testing their theories about the world against observations. If hypotheses do not accord with observations, they will eventually fall from favor (though scientists may hold on to a hypothesis even in the face of some conflicting evidence since sometimes it is the evi dence rather than the hypothesis that is mistaken). The social mechanisms of science also help eliminate distorting effects that person al values might have. They subject scientific claims to the process of collective valida tion, applying different perspectives to the same body of observations and hypotheses. The challenge for individual scientists is to acknowledge and try to understand the suppositions and beliefs that lie behind their own work so that they can use that self knowledge to advance their work. Such self-examination can be informed by study in many areas outside of science, including history, philosophy, sociology, literature, art, religion, and ethics. If narrow specialization and a single-minded focus on a single activ ity keep a researcher from developing the perspective and fine sense of discrimination needed to apply values in science, that person's work can suffer. 141 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) hftp:/iwww..nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1 .html Copyright 1995, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved A CONFLICT OF INTEREST CONFLICTS OF INTEREST John, a third-year graduate student, is participating in a department wide seminar where students, post docs, and faculty members discuss work in progress. An assistant pro fessor prefaces her comments by saying that the work she is about to discuss is sponsored by both a fed eral grant and a biotechnology firm for which she consults. In the course of the talk John realizes that he has been working on a technique that could make a major contribution to the work being discussed. But his faculty advisor consults for a differ ent, and competing, biotechnology firm. L How should John participate in this seminar? sLWhat, if anything, should he say to his advisor-and when? 1 What implications does this case raise for the traditional openness and sharing of data, materials, and findings that have character ized modern science? ometimes values conflict. For example, a particular circumstance might compro- Smise-or appear to compromise- professional judgments. May be a researcher has a financial interest in a particular company, which might create a bias in scientific deci sions affecting the future of that company (as might be the case if a researcher with stock in a company were paid to determine the usefulness of a new device produced by the company). Or a scientist might receive a manuscript or proposal to review that discusses work similar to but a step ahead of that being done by the reviewer. These are difficult situations that require trade-offs and hard choices, and the scientific com munity is still debating what is and is not proper when many of these situations arise. Virtually all institutions that conduct research now have policies and procedures for managing conflicts of interest. In addition, many editors of scientific journals have established explicit policies regarding conflicts of interest. These policies and procedures are designed to protect the integrity of the scientific process, the missions of the institutions, the investment of stakeholders in institutions (including the investments of parents and students in universities), and public confi dence in the integrity of research. Disclosure of conflicts of interest subjects these concerns to the same social mech anisms that are so effective elsewhere In society. In some cases it may only be neces sary for a researcher to inform a journal editor of a potential conflict of interest, leaving it for the editor to decide what action is necessary, In other cases careful monitoring of research activities can allow important research with a potential conflict of interest to go forward while protecting the integrity of the institution and of science. In any of these cases the intent is to involve outside monitors or otherwise create checks to reduce the possibility that bias will enter into science. INDUSTRIAL SPONSORSHIP OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH Sandra was excited about being accepted as a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Frederick, a leading scholar in the field, and she embarked on her assigned research project eagerly. But after a few months she began to have misgivings. Though part of Dr. Frederick's work was supported by federal grants, the project on which she was working was totally supported by a grant from a sin gle company. She had known this before coming to the lab and had not thought it would be a problem. But she had not known that Dr. Frederick also had a major consulting agreement with the company. She also heard from other graduate students that when it came time to publish her work, any paper would be subject to review by the company to determine if any of her work was patentable. l_What are the advantages and disadvantages of Sandra doing research sponsored entirely by a single company? 2, Flow can she address the specific misgivings she has about her research? 2, If Sandra wishes to discuss her qualms with someone at her uni versity, to whom should she turn? DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A LUS A G E PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - PUBLICATION AND OPEN NESS cience is not an individual experience. It is shared knowledge based on a common Sunderstanding of some aspect of the physical or social world. For that reason, the social conventions of science play an important role in establishing the reliability of sci entific knowledge. If these conventions are disrupted, the quality of science can suffer. Many of the social conventions that have proven so effective in science arose during the birth of modern science in the latter half of the seventeenth century. At that time, many scientists sought to keep their work secret so that others could not claim it as their own. Prominent figures of the time, including Isaac Newton, were loathe to convey news of their discoveries for fear that someone else would claim priority- a fear that was frequently realized. 142 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww.,riap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1 ,html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved The solution to the problem of making new discoveries public while assuring their author's credit was worked out by Henry Oldenburg, the secretary of the Royal Society of London. He won over scientists by guaranteeing rapid publication in the society's Philosophical Transactions as well as the official support of the society if the author's priority was brought into question. Oldenburg also pioneered the practice of sending submitted manuscripts to experts who could judge their quality. Out of these innova tions rose both the modern scientific journal and the practice of peer review. The continued importance of publication in learned journals accounts for the con vention that the first to publish a view or finding, not the first to discover it, tends to get most of the credit for the discovery. Once results are published, they can be freely used by other researchers to extend knowledge. But until the results become common knowledge, people who use them are obliged to recognize the discoverer through cita tions. In this way scientists are rewarded through peer recognition for making results public. Before publication, different considerations apply. If someone else exploits unpub lished material that is seen in a privileged grant application or manuscript, that person is essentially stealing intellectual property. In industry the commercial rights to scientif ic work belong more to the employer than the employee, but similar provisions apply: research results are privileged until they are published or otherwise publicly dissemi nated. Many scientists are generous in discussing their preliminary theories or results with colleagues, and some even provide copies of raw data to others prior to public disclo sure to facilitate related work. But scientists are not expected to make their data and thinking available to others at all times. During the initial stages of research, a scientist deserves a period of privacy in which data are not subject to disclosure. This privacy allows individuals to advance their work to the point at which they have confidence both in its accuracy and its meaning. After publication, scientists expect that data and other research materials will be shared with qualified colleagues upon request. Indeed, a number of federal agencies, journals, and professional societies have established policies requiring the sharing of research materials. Sometimes these materials are too voluminous, unwieldy, or costly to share freely and quickly. But in those fields in which sharing is possible, a scientist who is unwilling to share research materials with qualified colleagues runs the risk of not being trusted or respected. In a profession where so much depends on interpersonal interactions, the professional isolation that can follow a loss of trust can damage a sci entist's work. Publication in a peer-reviewed journal remains the standard means of disseminating scientific results, but other methods of communication are subtly altering how scientists divulge and receive information. Posters, abstracts, lectures at professional gatherings, and proceedings volumes are being used more often to present preliminary results before full review. Preprints and computer networks are increasing the ease and speed of scientific communications. These new methods of communication are in many cases just elaborations of the informal exchanges that pervade science. To the extent that they speed and improve communication and revision, they will strengthen science. But if publication practices, either new or traditional, bypass quality mechanisms, they risk weakening conventions that have served science well. An example is the scientist who releases important and controversial results directly to the public before submitting them to the scrutiny of peers. If the researcher has made a mistake or the findings are misinterpreted by the media or the public, the scientific community and the public may react adversely. When such news is to be released to the press, it should be done when peer review is complete-normally at the time of pub lication in a scientific journal. "We thus begin to see that the institutionalized practice of citations and references in the sphere of learning is not a trivial matter. While many a general reader- that is, the lay reader located outside the domain of science and scholarshipmay regard the lowly footnote of the remote endnote or the bibliographic parenthesis as a dispensable nuisance, it can be argued that these are in fact central to the incentive system and an underlying sense of distributive justice that do much to energize the advancement of knowledge" - Robert K. MERTON, "The Sociology of Science", Chicago, 1973 143 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) hltp:/iwww..nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1 .html Copyright 1995, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, ail rights reserved Sometimes researchers and the institutions sponsoring research have different inter ests in making results public. For example, a scientist doing research sponsored by industry may want to publish results quickly, while the industrial sponsor may want to keep results private-at least temporarily-to establish intellectual property rights prior to disclosure. Research institutions and government agencies have started to adopt explicit policies to reduce conflicts over such issues of ownership and access. In research has the potential of being financially profitable, openness can be main tained by the granting of patents. Patents enable an individual or institution to profit from a scientific discovery in return for making the results public. Scientists who may be doing patentable work have special obligations to the sponsors of that work. For exam ple, they may need to have their laboratory notebooks validated and dated by others. They may also have to disclose potentially valuable discoveries promptly to the patent official of the organization sponsoring the research. In some situations, such as propri etary research sponsored by industry or militarily sensitive research, openness in dissem inating research results may not be possible. Scientists working under such conditions may need to find other ways of exposing their work to professional scrutiny. Unclassified summaries of classified work can compensate for the lack of open scrutiny that allows the validation of results elsewhere in science. Properly structured visiting committees can examine proprietary or classified research while maintaining confidentiality. THE SHARING OF RESEARCH MATERIALS Ed, a fourth-year graduate student, was still several months away from finishing an ongoing research project when a new postdoc arrived from a laboratory doing similar work. After the two were introduced, Ed automatically asked about the work going on in the other lab and was surprised to hear that researchers there had suc cessfully developed a reagent that he was still struggl ing to perfect. Knowing that both labs had policies requiring the sharing of research materials, Ed wrote a letter to the head of the other lab asking if the laborato ry could share some of the reagent with him. He didn't expect there to be a problem, because his project was not in competition with the work of the other lab, but a couple of weeks later he got a letter from the lab director saying that the reagent could not be shared because it was still poorly developed and characterized ! The new postdoc, upon hearing the story, said, "That's ridiculous. They just don't want to give you a break." 1. Where can Ed go for help in obtaining the materials? Z, Are there risks in involving other people in this situation? What kinds of information is it appropriate for researchers to share with their colleagues when they change laboratories? DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - THE ALLOCATION OF CREDIT he principle of fairness and the role of personal recognition within the reward sys Ttem of science account for the emphasis given to the proper allocation of credit. In the standard scientific paper, credit is explicitly acknowledged in three places: in the list of authors, in the acknowledgments of contributions from others, and in the list of ref erences or citations. Conflicts over proper attribution can arise in any of these places. Citations serve many purposes in a scientific paper. They acknowledge the work of other scientists, direct the reader toward additional sources of information, acknowl edge conflicts with other results, and provide support for the views expressed in the paper. More broadly, citations place a paper within its scientific context, relating it to the present state of scientific knowledge. Failure to cite the work of others can give rise to more than just hard feelings. Citations are part of the reward system of science. They are connected to funding deci sions and to the future careers of researchers. More generally, the misallocation of cred it undermines the incentive system for publication. 144 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww.,nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/htrni/R1.html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved 1--------------------------------------------------- CREDIT WHERE CREDIT tS DUE -------------------- Ben, a third-year graduate student, had been working on a research project that involved an important new experimental technique. For a national meeting in his discipline, Ben wrote an abstract and gave a brief presentation that mentioned the new technique. After his presentation, he was surprised and pleased when Dr. Freeman, a leading researcher from another university, engaged him in an extended conversation. Dr. Freeman asked Ben extensively about the new technique, and Ben described it fully. Ben's own faculty advisor often encouraged his students not to keep secrets from other researchers, and Ben was flattered that Dr. Freeman would be so interested in his work. Six months later Ben was leafing through a journal when he noticed an article by Dr. Freeman. The article described an experiment that clearly depended on the technique that Ben had developed. He didn't mind ; in fact, he was again somewhat flattered that his tech nique had so strongly influenced Dr Freeman's work. But when he turned to the citations, expecting to see a reference to his abstract or presentation, his name was nowhere to be round. L Does Ben have any way of receiving credit for his work? 2. Should he contact Dr. Freeman in an effort to have his work rec ognized? 3, Is Ben's faculty advisor mistaken in encouraging his students to be so open about their work? DO CUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 2004 In addition, scientists who routinely fail to cite the work of others may find themselves excluded from the fellowship of their peers. This consideration is particularly important in one of the more intangible aspects of a scientific career-that of building a reputation. Published papers document a person's approach to science, which is why it is impor tant that they be clear, verifiable, and honest. In addition, a researcher who is open, helpful, and full of ideas becomes known to colleagues and will benefit much more than someone who is secretive or uncooperative. Some people succeed in science despite their reputations. Many more succeed at least in part because of their reputations. AUTHORSHIP PRACTICES he allocation of credit can also become an issue in the listing of authors' names. TScience bas become a much more collaborative enterprise than it was in the past. The average number of authors for articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, for example, has risen from slightly more than one in 1925 to more than six today. In some areas, such as high-energy physics or genome sequencing, the number of authors can rise into the hundreds. This increased collaboration has produced many new opportu nities for researchers to work with colleagues at different stages in their careers, in dif ferent disciplines, or even in widely separated locations. It has also increased the pos sibility for differences to arise over questions of authorship. In many fields, the earlier a name appears in the list of authors, the greater the implied contribution, but conventions differ greatly among disciplines and among research groups. Sometimes the scientist with the greatest name recognition is listed first, whereas in other fields the research leader's name is always last. In some disci plines supervisors' names rarely appear on papers, while in others the professor's name appears on almost every paper that comes out of the lab. Some research groups and journals avoid these decisions by simply listing authors alphabetically. Frank and open discussion of the division of credit within research groups-as early in the research process as possible and preferably at the very beginning, especially for research leading to a published paper-can prevent later difficulties. The best practice is for authorship criteria to be explicit among all collaborators. In addition, collaborators should be familiar with the conventions in a particular field to understand their rights and obligations. Group meetings provide an occasion to discuss ethical and policy issues in research. 145 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) hltp:/iwww,.n-ap.edu/openbook/0309051967/htmf/R1 .html Copyright 1995.2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved The allocation of credit can be particularly sensitive when it involves researchers at different stages of their careers-for example, post-docs and graduate students, or sen ior faculty and student researchers. In such situations, differences in roles and status compound the difficulties of according credit. WHO SHOULD GET CREDIT FOR THE DISCOVERY OF PULSARS? A much-discussed example of the difficulties associated with allo cating credit between junior and senior researchers was the 1967 dis covery by Jocelyn Bell, then a 24-year-old graduate student, of pulsars. Over the previous two years. Bell and several other students, under the supervision of Bell's thesis advisor, Anthony Hewish, had built a 4.5-acre radiotele scope to investigate scintillating radio sources in the sky. After the tel escope began functioning, Bell was in charge of operating it and ana lyzing its data under Hewish's direction. One day Bell noticed "a bit of scruff'" on the data chart. She remembered seeing the same signal earlier and by measuring the period of its recurrence, determined that it had to be coming from an extraterrestrial source. Together Bell and Hewish analyzed the signal and found several similar examples elsewhere in the sky. After discarding the idea that the signals were coming from an extraterrestrial intelligence, Hewish, Bell, and three other people involved in the project published a paper announcing the discovery, which was given the name "pulsar" by a British science reporter. Many argued that Bell should have shared the Nobel Prize award ed to Hewish for the discovery, saying that her recognition of the sig nal was the crucial act of discovery. Others, including Bell herself, said that she had received adequate recognition in other ways and should not have been so lavishly rewarded for doing what a graduate student is expected to do in a project conceived and set up by others. Several considerations must be weighed in determining the proper division of credit between a student or research assistant and a senior scientist, and a range of practices are acceptable. If a senior researcher has defined and put a project into motion and a junior researcher is invited to join in, major credit may go to the senior researcher, even if at the moment of discovery the senior researcher is not present. By the same token, when a student or research assistant is making an intellectual contribution to a research project, that contribution deserves to be recognized. Senior scientists are well aware of the importance of credit in science and are expected to give junior researchers credit where warranted. In such cases, junior researchers may be listed as coauthors or even senior authors, depending on the work, traditions within the field, and arrangements within the team. Occasionally a name is included in a list of authors even though that person had lit tle or nothing to do with the content of a paper. Such "honorary authors" dilute the cred it due the people who actually did the work, inflate the credentials of those so "hon ored," and make the proper attribution of credit more difficult. Several scientific journals now state that a person should be listed as the author of a paper only if that person made a direct and substantial contribution to the paper. Some journals require all named authors to sign the letter that accompanies submissions of the original article and all subsequent revisions to ensure that no author is named without consent and that all authors agree with the final version. As with citations, author listings establish accountability as well as credit. When a paper is found to contain errors, whether caused by mistakes or deceit, authors might wish to disavow responsibility, saying that they were not involved in the part of the paper containing the errors or that they had very little to do with the paper in general. However, an author who is willing to take credit for a paper must also bear responsibility for its contents. Thus, unless a footnote or the text of the paper explicitly assigns responsibil ity for different parts of the paper to different authors, the authors whose names appear on a paper must share responsibility for all of it. DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 146 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww.,nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1.html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved ERROR AND NEGLIGENCE IN SCIENCE `Of all the traits which qualify a cientific results are inherently provisional. Scientists can never prove conclusively scientist for citizenship it the Sthat they have described some aspect of the natural or physical world with com republic of science, I would put a sense of responsibility as a plete accuracy. In that sense all scientific results must be treated as susceptible to error. scientist at the very top. A scientist Errors arising from human fallibility also occur in science. Scientists do not have can be brilliant, imaginative, clever limitless working time or access to unlimited resources. Even the most responsible sci entist can make an honest mistake. When such errors are discovered, they should be acknowledged, preferably in the same journal in which the mistaken information was published. Scientists who make such acknowledgments promptly and openly are rarely with his hands, profound, broad, narrow-but he is not much as a scientist unless the is responsible" - Alvin WEINBERG "The obligations of Citizenship in condemned by colleagues. the of Science" Minerva, 16:1-3, Mistakes made through negligent work are treated more harshly. Haste, careless 1978 ness, inattention-any of a number of faults can lead to work that does not meet the stan dards demanded in science. If scientists cut corners for whatever reason, they are plac ing their reputation, the work of their colleagues, and the public's confidence in science at risk. Some researchers may feel that the pressures on them are an inducement to haste at the expense of care. For example, they may believe that they have to do substandard work to compile a long list of publications and that this practice is acceptable. Or they may be tempted to publish virtually the same research results in two different places or publish their results in "least publishable units'1- papers that are just detailed enough to be published but do not give the full story of the research project described. 1--------------------------------------------------------- PUBLICATION PRACTICES ----- Paula, a young assistant professor, and two graduate students have been working on a series of related experiments for the past several years. During that time, the experiments have been written up in various posters, abstracts, and meeting presentations. Now it is time to write up the experiments for publication, but the students and Paula must first make an important decision. They could write a single paper with one first author that would describe the experi ments in a comprehensive manner, or they could write a series of shorter, less complete papers so that each student could be a first author. Paula favors the first option, arguing that a single publication in a more visible journal would better suit all of their purposes. Paula's students, on the other hand, strongly suggest that a series of papers be prepared. They argue that one paper encompassing all the results would be too long and complex and might damage their career opportunities because they would not be able to point to a paper on which they were first authors. JL If the experiments are part of a series, are Paula and her students justified in not publishing them together? 2. If they decided to publish a single paper, how should the listing of authors be handled? 3. If a single paper is published, how can they emphasize to the review committees and funding agencies their various roles and the importance of the paper? DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - Sacrificing quality to such pressures can easily backfire. A lengthy list of publications cannot outweigh a reputation for shoddy research. Scientists with a reputation for pub lishing a work of dubious quality will generally find that all of their publications are viewed with skepticism by their colleagues. Reflecting the importance of quality, some institutions and federal agencies have recently adopted policies that limit the number of papers that will be considered when an individual is evaluated for appointment, promo tion, or funding. By introducing preventable errors into science, sloppy or negligent research can do great damage-even if the error is eventually uncovered and corrected. Though science is built on the idea of peer validation and acceptance, actual replication is selective. It is not practical (or necessary) to reconstruct all the observations and theoretical con structs that go into an investigation. Researchers have to trust that previous investiga tors performed the work as reported. If that trust is misplaced and the previous results are inaccurate, the truth will likely emerge as problems arise in the ongoing investigation. But researchers can waste months or years of effort because of erroneous results, and public confidence in the integrity of science can be seriously undermined. 147 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) hitp:/iwww.,n3p.edu/openbook/03G9051967/html/R1.htm! Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved MISCONDUCT IN SCIENCE eyond honest errors and errors caused through negligence are a third category of Berrors: those that involve deception. Making up data or results (fabrication), chang ing or misreporting data or results (falsification), and using the ideas or words of anoth er person without giving appropriate credit (plagiarism)- all strike at the heart of the val ues on which science is based. These acts of scientific misconduct not only undermine progress but the entire set of values on which the scientific enterprise rests. Anyone who engages in any of these practices is putting his or her scientific career at risk. Even infractions that may seem minor at the time can end up being severely punished. The ethical transgressions discussed in earlier sections-such as misallocation of credit or errors arising from negligence-are matters that generally remain internal to the scientific community. Usually they are dealt with locally through the mechanisms of peer review, administrative action, and the system of appointments and evaluations in the research environment. But misconduct in science is unlikely to remain internal to the scientific community. Its consequences are too extreme: it can harm individuals outside of science (as when falsified results become the basis of a medical treatment), it squan ders public funds, and it attracts the attention of those who would seek to criticize sci ence. As a result, federal agencies, Congress, the media, and the courts can all get involved. Within the scientific community, the effects of misconduct-in terms of lost time, for feited recognition to others, and feelings of personal betrayal-can be devastating. Individuals, institutions, and even entire research fields can suffer grievous setbacks from instances of fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism even if they are only tangential ly associated with the case. When individuals have been accused of scientific misconduct in the past, the insti tutions responsible for responding to those accusations have taken a number of differ ent approaches. In general, the most successful responses are those that clearly sepa rate a preliminary investigation to gather information from a subsequent adjudication to judge guilt or innocence and issue sanctions if necessary. During the adjudication stage, the individual accused of misconduct has the. right to various due process protections, such as reviewing the evidence gathered during the investigation and cross-exarmining witnesses. DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - FABRICATION IN A GRANT APPLICATION Don is a first year graduate student applying to the National Science Foundation for a predoctoral fellowship. His work in a lab where he did a rotation project was later carried on successfully by others, and it appears that a manuscript will be prepared for publi cation by the end of the summer. However, the fellowship applica tion deadline is June 1, and Don decides it would be advantageous to list a publication as "submitted." Without consulting the faculty member or other colleagues involved, Don makes up a title and author list for a "submitted" paper and cites it in his application. After the application has been mailed, a lab member sees it and goes to the faculty member to ask about the "submitted" manu script. Don admits to fabricating the submission of the paper but explains his actions by saying that he thought the practice, was not uncommon in science. The faculty members in Don's department demand that he with draw his grant application and dismiss him from the graduate pro gram. After leaving the university, Don applies for a master's degree, since he has fulfilled the course requirements. Although the department votes not to grant him a degree, the university adminis tration does so because il is not stated in the university graduate bulletin that a student in Don's department must be in "good stand ing" to receive a degree. They fear that Don will bring suit against the university if the degree is denied. Likewise, nothing will appear in Don's university transcript regarding his dismissal. 1. Do you agree with Don that scientists often exaggerate the publication status of their work in written materials? 2. Do you think the department acted too harshly in dismissing Don from the graduate program? 3. Do you believe that being in "good standing" should be a pre requisite for obtaining an advanced degree in science? If Don later applied to a graduate program at another institution, does that institution have the right to know what happened? 148 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http;/iwww..nap,edu/openbook/0309051967/htmi/R1,html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved In addition to falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism, other ethical transgressions directly associated with research can cause serious harm to individuals and institutions. Examples include cover ups of misconduct in science, reprisals against whistleblowers, malicious allegations of misconduct in science,and violations of due process in handling complaints of misconduct in science. Policymakers and scientists have not decided whether such actions should be considered misconduct in science-and therefore sub ject to the same procedures and sanctions as falsification, fabrication, and plagiarismor whether they should be investigated and adjudicated through different channels. Regulations adopted by the National Science Foundation and the Public Health Service define misconduct to include "other serious deviations from accepted research prac tices," in addition to falsification, fabrication, and plagiarism, leaving open the possibil ity that other actions could be considered misconduct in science. The problem with such language is that it could allow a scientist to be accused of misconduct for using novel or unorthodox research methods, even though such methods are sometimes needed to proceed in science. Federal officials respond by saying that this language is needed to prosecute ethical breaches that do not strictly fall into the categories of fal sification, fabrication, or plagiarism and that no scientist has been accused of miscon duct on the basis of using unorthodox research methods. This area of science policy is still evolving. Another category of behaviors- including sexual or other forms of harassment, mis use of funds, gross negligence in a person's professional activities, tampering with the experiments of others or with instrumentation, and violations of government research regulations-are not necessarily associated with scientific conduct. Institutions need to discourage and respond to such behaviors. But these behaviors are subject to general ly applicable legal and social penalties and should be dealt with using the same proce dures that would be applied to anyone. ----------------------------------------------------------------- A CASE OF PLAGIARISM ------------------------------------- May is a second-year graduate student preparing the written portion of her qualifying exam. She incorporates whole sentences and paragraphs verbatim from several published papers. She does not use quotation marks, but the sources are suggested by state ments like "(see ... for more details)." The faculty on the qualifying exam committee note inconsistencies in the writing styles of differ ent paragraphs of the text and check the sources, uncovering May's plagiarism. After discussion with the faculty, May's plagiahsm is brought to the attention of the dean of the graduate school, whose responsi bility it is to review such incidents that "plagiarism, that is, the fail ure in a dissertation, essay, or other written exercise to acknowl edge ideas, research or language taken from others" is specifically prohibited. The dean expels May from the program with the stipu lation that she can reapply for the next academic year. 1, Is plagiarism like this a common practice? 2, Are there circumstances that should have led to May's bein forgiven for plagiarizing? 2. Should May be allowed to reapply to the program? DO CUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - RESPONDING TO VIOLATIONS OF ETHICAL STANDARDS ne of the most difficult situations that a researcher can encounter is to see or sus Opect that a colleague has violated the ethical standards of the research commu nity. It is easy to find excuses to do nothing, but someone who has witnessed miscon duct has an unmistakable obligation to act. At the most immediate level, misconduct can seriously obstruct or damage one's own research or the research of colleagues. More broadly, even a single case of misconduct can malign scientists and their institu tions, result in the imposition of counterproductive regulations, and shake public confi dence in the integrity of science. 149 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww..nap.edu/openbook/O309O51967/html/Rl.html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved To be sure, raising a concern about unethical conduct is rarely an easy thing to do. In some cases, anonymity is possible-but not always. Reprisals by the accused person and by skeptical colleagues have occurred in the past and have had serious conse quences. Any allegation of misconduct is a very important charge that needs to be taken seriously. If mishandled, an allegation can gravely damage the person charged, the one who makes the charge, the institutions involved, and science in general. Someone who is confronting a problem involving research ethics usually has more options than are immediately apparent. In most cases the best thing to do is to discuss the situation with a trusted friend or advisor. In universities, faculty advisors, department chairs, and other senior faculty can be invaluable sources of advice in deciding whether to go forward with a complaint. An important consideration is deciding when to put a complaint in writing. Once in writing, universities are obligated to deal with a complaint in a more formal manner them if it is made verbally. Putting a complaint in writing can have serious consequences for the career of a scientist and should be undertaken only after thorough consideration. The National Science Foundation and Public Health Service require all research insti tutions that receive public funds to have procedures in place to deal with allegations of unethical practice. These procedures take into account fairness for the accused, pro tection for the accuser, coordination with funding agencies, and requirements for confi dentiality and disclosure. In addition, many universities and other research institutions have designated an ombudsman, ethics officer, or other official who is available to discuss situations involv ing research ethics. Such discussions are carried out in strictest confidence whenever possible. Some institutions provide for multiple entry points, so that complainants can go to a person with whom they feel comfortable. DOCUMENT S TB CTE M E NT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 1------------------------------------------------------------ A CAREER IN THE BALANCE ------------------------------------------------------ Francine was just months away from finishing her Ph.D. disser tation when she realized that something was seriously amiss with the work of a fellow graduate student, Sylvia. Francine was con vinced that Sylvia was not actually making the measurements she claimed to be making. They shared the same lab, but Sylvia rarely seemed to be there. Sometimes Francine saw research materials thrown away unopened. The results Sylvia was turning in to their common thesis advisor seemed too clean to be real. Francine knew that she would soon need to ask her thesis advi sor for a letter of recommendation for faculty and postdoc posi tions. If she raised the issue with her advisor now, she was sure that it would affect the letter of recommendation. Sylvia was a favorite of her advisor, who had often helped Sylvia before when her proj ect ran into problems. Yet Francine also knew that if she waited to raise the issue the question would inevitably arise as to when she first suspected problems. Both Francine and her thesis advisor were using Sylvia's results in their own research. If Sylvia's results were inaccurate, they both needed to know as soon as possible. T Should Francine first try to talk with Sylvia, with her thesis advi sor, or with someone else entirely? 2, Does she know enough to be able to raise concerns? 3, Where else can Francine go for information that could help her decide what to do? Government agencies, including the National Science Foundation and Public Health Sen/ice, enforce laws and regulations that deal with misconduct in science. At the Public Health Service in Washington, D.C., complaints can be referred to the appropri ate office through the Office of Research Integrity. At the National Science Foundation in Arlington, Virginia, complaints can be directed to the Office of the Inspector General. Within universities, research grant officials can provide guidance on whether federal rules may be involved in filing a complaint. Many institutions have prepared written materials that offer guidance in situations involving professional ethics. Volume II of Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1993) reprints a number of these documents. Sigma Xi, a national society of research scientists head- 150 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww.,nap.edu/openbook/030905l967/htmi/R1 ,html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy oF Sciences, all rights reserved quartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., and other scientific and engineering pro fessional organizations also are prepared to advise scientists who encounter cases of possible misconduct. The research system exerts many pressures on beginning and experienced researchers alike. Principal investigators need to raise funds and attract students. Faculty members must balance the time spent on research with the time spent teach ing undergraduates. Industrial sponsorship of research introduces the possibility of con flicts of interest. All parts of the research system have a responsibility to recognize and respond to these pressures. Institutions must review their own policies, foster awareness of research ethics, and ensure that researchers are aware of the policies that are in place. And researchers should constantly be aware of the extent to which ethically based deci sions will influence their success as scientists. "All research organization requires generous measures of the following: - social space for personal initiative and creativity - time for ideas to grow - hospitality toward novelty and - respect for specialized expertise (These) may sound too soft and old fashioned to stand up against the cruel modern realities of administrative acceptability and economic stringency. On the contrary, I believe that they are fundamental requirements for the continued advancements of scientific knowledge-and of course, for its eventual social benefits" - John ZIMAN Prometheus Bound: Science in a Dynamic Steady State THE SCIENTIST IN SOCIETY Cambridge University Press, New York, 1994, p276 his booklet has concentrated on the responsibilities of scientists for the advance Tment of science, but scientists have additional responsibilities to society. Even sci entists conducting the most fundamental research need to be aware that their work can ultimately have a great impact on society. Construction of the atomic bomb and the development of recombinant DNA-events that grew out of basic research on the nucle us of the atom and investigations of certain bacterial enzymes, respectively are two examples of how seemingly arcane areas of science can have tremendous societal con sequences. The occurrence and consequences of discoveries in basic research are virtually impossible to foresee. Nevertheless, the scientific community must recognize the potential for such discoveries and be prepared to address the questions that they raise. If scientists do find that their discoveries have implications for some important aspect of public affairs, they have a responsibility to call attention to the public issues involved. They might set up a suitable public forum involving experts with different perspectives on the issue at band. They could then seek to develop a consensus of informed judg ment that can be disseminated to the public. A good example is the response of biolo gist to the development of recombinant DNA technologies-first calling for a temporary moratorium on the research and then helping to set up a regulatory mechanism to ensure its safety. This document cannot describe the many responsibilities incumbent upon researchers because of science's function in modern society. The bibliography lists sev eral volumes that examine the social roles of scientists in detail. The important point is that science and technology have become such integral parts of society that scientists can no longer isolate themselves from societal concerns. Nearly half of the bills that come before Congress have a significant scientific or technological component. Scientists are increasingly called upon to contribute to public policy and to the public understanding of science. They play an important role in educating nonscientists about the content and processes of science. In fulfilling these responsibilities scientists must take the time to relate scientific knowledge to society in such a way that members of the public can make an informed decision about the relevance of research. Sometimes researchers reserve this right to themselves, considering nonexperts unqualified to make such judgments. But science DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 151 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct In Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww..nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1 .html Copyright 199s, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL AND SERVICE TO SOCIETY One way in which scientists sen/e the needs of the broader society is by participating in the activities of the National Research Council, which is administered by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The National Research Council brings together leaders from academia, industry, government, and other sectors to address critical national issues and provide advice to the U.S. government and its citizens. Over the course of a typical year, about 650 committees involving approximately 6,400 individuals study societally important issues that involve science and technology. All of these experts volunteer their time to serve on study committees, plan and participate in seminars, review documents, and oth-erwise assist in the work of the institution. Study committees work independently of government, sponsors, and special-interest groups. Continuous oversight and formal anonymous review of the results of the studies enhance objectivity and quality. offers only one window on human experience. While upholding the honor of their pro fession, scientists must seek to avoid putting scientific knowledge on a pedestal above knowledge obtained through other means. Many scientists enjoy working with the public. Others see this obligation as a dis traction from the work they would like to be doing. But concern and involvement with the broader uses of scientific knowledge are essential if scientists are to retain the pub lic's trust. The research enterprise has itself been changing as science has become increasingly integrated into everyday life. But the core values on which the enterprise is based- honesty, skepticism, fairness, collegiality, openness- remain unchanged. These values have helped produce a research enterprise of unparalleled productivity and cre ativity. So long as they remain strong, science-and the society it serves- will prosper. BIBLIOGRAPHY Volume I of Responsible Science: Ensuring the Integrity of the Research Process (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1992) presents a thorough analysis of sci entific misconduct made by the Panel on Scientific Responsibility and the Conduct of Research under the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine. Volume II of Responsible Science (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1993) contains a number of background papers, a selection of guidelines for the conduct of research, and examples of specific research policies and procedures for handling allegations of misconduct in science. In The Responsible Conduct of Research in the Health Sciences (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1989), the Institute of Medicine's Committee on the Responsible Conduct of Research examines institutional policies and procedures designed to strengthen the professional standards of academic research. Sharing Research Data, edited by Stephen E. Fienberg, Margaret E. Martin, and Miron L. Straf (National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 1985), lays out general principles to gov ern the sharing of research results and the materials used in research. l U. s An early but still excellent book on experimental and statistical methods for data reduc tion is E. Bright Wilson's An Introduction to Scientific Research (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1952). A more general book from the same period that remains useful today is The Art of Scientific Investigation by W. I. B. Beveridge (Third Edition, Vintage Books, New York, 1957). DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX A broad overview of the philosophy, sociology, politics, and psychology of science can be found in John Ziman's An Introduction to Science Studies: The Philosophical and Social Aspects of Science and Technology (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1984), Ziman analyzes many of the changes going on in contemporary science in Prometheus Bound: Science in a Dynamic Steady State (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1994). Many pioneering essays by Robert K. Merton have been collected in The Sociology of Science (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1973). Stephen Cole analyzes and cri tiques some of the more modern work in the sociology of science in Making Science: Between Nature and Society (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass. 1992). 152 DOCUMENT STRJCTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct In Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww.,nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1.html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved Gerald Holton discusses the thematic presuppositions of scientists and the integrity of science in chapters 1 and 12 of his book Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein (Revised Edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1988). Holton elaborates on the historical context of research ethics in "On Doing One's Damnedest: The Evolution of Trust in Scientific Findings," which is chapter 7 in Einstein, History, and Other Passions (American Institute of Physics, New York, 1994). The roles of recognition and credit in science are discussed in chapters 8-10 of David Hull's Science as Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988). Peter B. Medawar addresses the concerns of beginning researchers in his book Advice to a Young Scientist (Harper & Row, New York, 1979). "Honor in Science" by C. Ian Jackson, is a booklet offering "practical advice to those entering careers in scientific research" (Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Research Triangle Park, N. C., 1992). Ethics, Values, and the Promise of Science (Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society, Research Triangle Park, N. C., 1993), the proceedings of a 1992 forum held by Sigma Xi, contains a number of interesting papers on ethical scientific conduct. Several insightful books offer advice for researchers about succeeding in a scientific career, including A Ph.D. Is Not Enough: A Guide to Survival in Science by Peter J. Feibelman (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass., 1993), The Incomplete Guide to the Art of Discovery by Jack E. Oliver (Columbia University Press, New York, 1991), and The Joy of Science by Carl J. Sindermann (Plenum Publishers, New York, 1985. Alexander Kohn presents a number of case studies of misconduct and self-deception from the history of science and medicine in False Prophets: Fraud and Error in Science and Medicine (Basil Blackwell, New York, 1988). A lively book that discusses several historic cases of self-deception in science is Diamond Dealers and Feather Merchants: Tales from the Sciences by Irving M. Klotz (Birkhauser, Boston, 1986). The story of cold fusion is well told in Cold Fusion: The Scientific Fiasco of the Century by John. R. s Huizenga (Oxford University Press, New York, 1993) and in Gary Taubes' Bad Science: The Short Life & Hard Times of Cold Fusion (Random House, New York, 1993). % I Harriet Zuckerman gives a thorough, scholarly analysis of scientific misconduct in 4 "Deviant Behavior and Social Control in Science" (pp. 87-138 in Deviance and Social Change, Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, Calif., 1977). Frederick Grinnell has a chapter on scientific misconduct in the second edition of The Scientific Attitude (Guilford Press. New York, 1992). The American Association of Medical Colleges has gathered a large number of case studies in Teaching the Responsible Conduct of Research Through a Case Study Approach (American Association of Medical Colleges. Washington, D.C., 1994). Research Ethics: Cases and Materials, edited by Robin Levin Penslar (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994), contains a number of extended case studies as well as essays on various aspects of research ethics. In Understanding Ethical Problems in Engineering Practice and Research (Cambridge University Press, New York, 1995), Caroline Whitbeck examines issues of professional ethics (such as the engineer's or chemist's responsibility for safety) and research ethics. The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Bar Association have jointly issued sev eral publications on issues of scientific ethics, including Good Science and Responsible Scientists: Meeting the Challenge of Fraud and Misconduct in Science, by Albert H. Teich and Mark S. Frankel (American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C., 1991). 153 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww,.nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/htmi/R1.html Copyright 1995, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved The report Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, prepared by John T. Edsall (American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C., 1975), remains an important statement on the social obligations of scientists in the modern world. Rosemary Chalk has compiled a series of papers from Science magazine on ethics, sci entific freedom, social responsibility, and a number of other topics in Science, Technology, and Society: Emerging Relationships (American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C., 1988). The Barbara McClintock quotation on the first page of the document came from A Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock by Evelyn Fox Keller (W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1983). Among audiovisual materials, the NOVA program "Do Scientists Cheat?" stands out as a balanced treatment of ethical issues in the conduct of research. APPENDIX: DISCUSSION OF CASE STUDIES The hypothetical scenarios included in this booklet raise many different issues that can be discussed and debated. The observations and questions given below suggest just some of the areas that can be explored. THE SELECTION OF DATA Deborah and Kathleen's principal obligation, in writing up their results for publication, is to describe what they have done and give the basis for their actions. They must there fore examine how they can meet this obligation within the context of the experiment they have done. Questions that need to be answered include: If the authors state in the paper that data have been rejected because of problems with the power supply, should the data points still be included in the published chart? Should statistical analyses be | done that both include and exclude the questionable data? If conventions within their discipline allow for the use of statistical devices to eliminate outlying data points, how explicit do Deborah and Kathleen need to be in the published paper about the proce dures they have followed? DOCUMENT STRtCTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES^ - A CONFLICT OF INTEREST Science thrives in an atmosphere of open communication. When communication is lim ited, progress is limited for everyone. John therefore needs to weigh the advantages of keeping quiet-if in fact there are any-against the damage that accrues to science if he keeps his suggestion to himself. He might also ask himself how keeping quiet might affect his own life in science. Does he want to appear to his advisor and his peers as someone who is less than forthcoming with his ideas? Will he enjoy science as much if he purposefully limits communication with others? INDUSTRIAL SPONSORSHIP OF ACADEMIC RESEARCH Sandra has enrolled in the university to receive an education, not to work for industry. But working on industrially sponsored research is not necessarily incompatible with get ting a good education. In fact, it can be a valuable way to gain insight into industrially oriented problems and to prepare for future work that has direct applications to socie tal needs. The question that must be asked is whether the nature of the research is sub- 154 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww..nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/htrni/R1 .html Copyright 1995, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved verting Sandra's education. Sandra's faculty advisor has entered into a relationship that could result in conflicts of interest. That relationship is therefore most likely to be sub ject to review by third parties. Can Sandra turn to those responsible for overseeing the research for help in resolving her own uncertainties? What would be the possible effects on her career if she did so? THE SHARING OF RESEARCH MATERIALS After a research material like a reagent has been described in a publication, sharing that material speeds and in some cases enables the replication of results and therefore con tributes to the progress of science. But the reagent in this situation has not yet been described in a published paper, so the provisions for sharing it are different. Ed needs to consider the other laboratory's legitimate interest in developing that material and establishing how it works before publication. He also needs to consider the relationship between the two laboratories. If he turns to his faculty advisor for help in acquiring the reagent, how is his advisor likely to respond? Is there any way he can work with the other laboratory and thereby come a step closer to forming an agreement with them about the use of the reagent? CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE Ben is to be commended for being open and for seeking to involve others in his work. He will benefit from that openness, even if he seems not to have benefited in this situ ation. At the same time, Ben has to ask himself honestly if his comments were a critical factor in Dr. Freeman's work. If Dr. Freeman had already had the same ideas, he should have told Ben this during their conversation. But could the same ideas have come from elsewhere? If Ben is still convinced that he has not been treated fairly, he will need to work with his research advisor to see if his contributions can be acknowledged. One option would be to see if his advisor would cosign a letter with Ben or write a letter on Ben's behalf addressing this issue. Ben will need to think about the possible implications of this | course of action for his own career. What if Dr. Freeman writes back and says that the lack of credit was an oversight and that he will credit Ben in the future? What if he says that Ben's objections are not warranted and gives the reasons why? PUBLICATION PRACTICES Contributions to a scientific field are not counted in terms of the number of papers. They are counted in terms of significant differences in how science is understood. With that in mind, Paula and her students need to consider how they are most likely to make a significant contribution to their field. One determinant of impact is the coherence and completeness of a paper. Paula and her students may need to begin writing before they can tell whether one or more papers is needed. In retrospect, Paula and her students might also ask themselves about the process that led to their decision. Should they have discussed publications much earlier in the process? Were the students led to believe that they would be first authors on published papers? If so, should that influence future work in the lab? FABRICATION IN A GRANT APPLICATION Even though Don did not introduce spurious results into science, he fabricated the sub mission of the research paper and therefore engaged in misconduct. Though his treat ment by the department might seem harsh, fabrication strikes so directly at the foun dations of science that it is not excusable. 155 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww..nap.edu/openbook/0309051967/html/R1.html Copyright 1995,2000 The National Academy oF Sciences, all rights reserved This scenario also demonstrates that researchers and administrators in an institution may differ on the appropriate course of action to take when research ethics are violat ed. Sometimes institutions may be unwilling or unable to respond to an ethical trans gression in the way the scientific community would desire. Researchers might then have to decide the extent to which they are willing to impose and enforce sanctions them selves. A CASE OF PLAGIARISM A broad spectrum of misconduct falls into the category of plagiarism, ranging from obvi ous theft to uncredited paraphrasing that some might not consider dishonest at all. In a lifetime of reading, theorizing, and experimenting, a person's work will inevitably incor porate and overlap with that of others. However, occasional overlap is one thing; sys tematic use of the techniques, data, words, or ideas of others without appropriate acknowledgment is another. A person's background can play a role in considering episodes of plagiarism. For example, what if May had never been taught the conventions and institutional policies governing the attribution of other's work? Should she then have been treated more leniently? A CAREER IN THE BALANCE Francine's most obvious option is to discuss the situation with her research advisor, but she has to ask herself if this is the best alternative. Her advisor is professionally and emotionally involved in the situation and may not be able to take an impartial stance. In addition, because the advisor is involved in the situation, she may feel the need to turn the inquiry into a formal investigation or to report the inquiry to her supervisors. Francine should also consider whether she can discuss the situation directly with Sylvia. Many suspicions evaporate when others have a chance to explain actions that may have been misinterpreted. If Francine feels that she cannot talk with Sylvia, she needs some way to discuss her concerns confidentially. Maybe she could turn to a trusted friend, another member of the faculty, someone on the university's administrative staff, or an ombudsman desig nated by the university. That person can help Francine explore such questions as: What is known and what is not known about the situation? What are the options available to her? Should she put her concerns in writing, an action likely to lead to a formal investigation? ft DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES RARTICIPANTS AUX 156 On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct In Research, Second Edition (1995) http:/iwww.,nap.edu/openbook/Q309051967/html/R1,html Copyright 199;, 2000 The National Academy of Sciences, all rights reserved The Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPUP) is a joint committee of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. It includes members of the councils of all three bodies. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private, non-profit, self-perpetuat ing society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the gen eration of welfare. Under the authority of the charter granted to it by Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce M. Alberts is president of. the NAS. The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) was established in 1964, under the charter of the NAS, as a parallel organization of distinguished engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of members, sharing with the NAS its responsibilities for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achieve ments of engineers. Dr. Robert M. White is president of the NAE. The Institute of Medicine (IOM) was established in 1970 by the National Academy, of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences in its congressional charter to be an advisor to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the IOM. 157 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES* - Octobre 2001 - Indice de classement: X 50-550 NORMALISATION FRANAISE Indice de classement: X 50-550 ICS : 03.100.40 ; 03.120.10 Demarche qualite en recherche PRINCIPES GEnERAUX ET RECOMMANDATIONS E: Research quality approach - General principles and recommendations D: Konzeption der Forschungsqualitat Aligemeine Prinzipien und Empfehlungen Fascicule de documentation public par AFNOR en octobre 2001, Correspondence A la date de publication du present document, il n'existe pas de travaux europeens ou internationaux traitant du meme sujet. Analyse Le present document fournit des recommandations pour mettre en place une demarche qualite dans les activites de recherche ainsi que dans le fonctionnement des entites dans lesquelles elles sont menees. Descripteurs Thesaurus International Technique: recherche, innovation, quality, assurance de qualite, principe, mise en oeuvre. Modifications - Corrections Par rapport au ler tirage, corrections editoriales dans le corps du texte. L'USAQE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 158 Fdite et diffuse par I'Association Franpaise de Normalisation (AFNOR) 11, avenue Francis de PressensE 93571 Saint-Denis La Plaine Cedex - T6I.: + 33 (0)141628000 - Fax: + 33 (0)1491790 OOwww.afnor.fr 2D  AFNOR 2001 QUALITY EN RECHERCHE AFNOR 2001 2* tirage 2002-05-F AFNOR X580 MEMBRES DE LA COMMISSION DE NORMALISATION President: MME PIEDALLU Secretariat:: MMES MONTOYA et NIEDZIELA - AFNOR M ANDRE ............................... INSTITUT DE RECHERCHE PIERRE FABRE M BERTHOME...................... IFREMER M BIRKUI ............................. INSERM MME BONMY ........................... CNRS MME BOURDILLON..................SANDERS ALIMENTS SNC M CARROTTE...................... INSTITUT DE L'ELEVAGE M CAUSSIGNAC.................... LCPC M D'AUTUME ......................... MINISTERE DE LA RECHERCHE - DIRECTION DE LA TECHNOLOGIE MME DE SAINT MARTIN ..........INSTITUT PASTEUR MME DIETL ................................CNRSM MME DRAGACCI .......................AFSSA M ENJUANES.........................MINISTERE DE L'AGRICULTURE - DGER M FARGES ............................. UNIVERSITE DE TECHNOLOGIE DE COMPIEGNE M GASTIGER .......................INERIS M HANGOUET .....................IGN MME KOUM BESSON .................INSERM M LARET ............................. CSTB MME LECONTEL .......................CNRS M LEMOUEL .......................SNCF M LE TRUNG........................ LE TRUNG BAO M LEMEE ............................. IFP MME MAJOU...............................MINISTERE DE L'EQUIPEMENT, DES TRANSPORTS ET DU LOGEMENT - DRAST M MEDEVI ELLE .................. INRETS M MOUNIN ..............................CEMAGREF M MURET.............................CEA M PAOLI ..................................LABORATOIRE CENTRAL DE LA PREFECTURE DE POLICE M PARISET ............................. UNIVERSITE BLAISE PASCAL - CLERMONT FERRAND M PETIT ............................... CEA MME PIEDALLU .......................INRA M PIHET............................... IPSN M POULAIN.......................... LABERCA M QUENARD ...................... ONERA M QUNE ............................. IGN MME ROCQUEFELTE ..............INSERM M SEGAUD .........................MINISTERE DE LA DEFENSE - DGA DSP MME SOUYRI ............................ MINISTERE DE LA RECHERCHE - DIRECTION DE LA RECHERCHE M SUREAU ..........................BRGM M TA........................................DANONE M TRONC .............................GAZ DE France M TUFFERY ...........................AFSSA M URIEN ............................... CEMAGREF M VINCK................................. UNIVERSITE P MENDES FRANCE-GRENOBLE II M VOIRON ............................. UNIVERSITE JOSEPH FOURIER GRENOBLE DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAQE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES 159 REFLEXIVES SEMtNAmE ENCAMANTS - DOCTORANTS PraHqiMi (Merit. pratiques de Normalisation franfaise - FDX 50-550 SOMMAIRE Page R6sum6................................................................................................................... 161 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 162 1 Domaine duplication................................................................................. 163 2 Pourquoi la qualitd en recherche ?...........................................................163 2.1 Enjeux scientifiques........................................................................................163 2.2 Enjeux economiques et financiers ............................................................... 164 2.3 Enjeux societaux et environnementaux.........................................................164 2.4 Enjeux pour I'organisme de recherche et ses chercheurs......................... 164 3 Comment ddvelopper la quality en recherche? .....................................165 3.1 Generates....................................................................................................... 165 3.2 Sens de la demarche qualite ........................................................................ 165 3.3 Principes de base de I'approche proposee.................................................. 165 3.3.1 Premier principe: Pragmatisme...................................................................... 165 3.3.2 Deuxieme principe: Pedagogie........................................................ v...........166 3.3.3 Troisieme principe: Integration...................................................................... 167 3.4 Mise en ceuvre de I'approche qualite ........................................................... 168 3.4.1 Definition de I'objectif initial .......................................................................... 169 3.4.2 Realisation de la recherche .......................................................................... 170 3.4.3 Valorisation des resultats............................................................................... 173 4 Perspectives...................................................................................................174 Bibliographic ... Ouvrages........... Normes ............. Rdglementation Liens sur Internet 176 .176 176 ,176 ,176 Annexe A (informative) Historique de la quality ...............................................177 Annexe b (informative) Exemples d'activitds de recherche ...........................178 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 160 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES RART1CIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 2004 Normalisation frangaise - FDX 50-550 rsum e fascicule de documentation vise a contribuer au progres et a I'amelioration con Ctinue des pratiques scientifiques par le developpement de demarches qualite en recherche. Exclusivement centre sur les aspects organisationnels de i'activite de recherche, il propose une approche methodologique tres flexible que les acteurs de la recherche (chercheurs avertis ou non en quality, responsables fonctionnels ou operationnels, membres de I'administration, decideurs nationaux, europeens ou internationaux, etc.) pourront adapter a leur propre contexte. Resolument pedagogique, il permet a tous les acteurs de la recherche de clarifier les enjeux et les approches possibles de la qualite en recherche. Ces principes peuvent paraitre trap generaux a ceux qui souhaitent, des a present, introduce un veritable management de la qualite en recherche afin d'assurer la recon naissance de leurs travaux au niveau international par des instances en charge de la qualite. D'autres, au contraire, pourront considerer que les dispositifs devaluation et de reconnaissance actuellement en place (en particular par les pairs) repondent encore largement aux besoins de la recherche, meme s'il est toujours possible de progresser. Les recommandations du present fascicule de documentation represented une position consensuelle frangaise sur le developpement des demarches qualite en recherche a mettre en oeuvre conctetement sur le terrain, au niveau local, national, europ6en ou international. Elies sont done, k ce stade, de portee g6nerale pour permettre a chaque organisme de se les approprier et de les adapter a I'etat de sa reflexion, de son avancement et de sa politique qualite. Les chercheurs peuvent y trouver des propositions proches de leur culture qui, par nature, remet toujours en question ses conclusions et aspire a Pexcellence. Les autres membres contribuant de plus loin a la recherche y trouveront un cadre renforce de coherence ou leurs actions d'amelioration convergent vers une dynamique globale et valorisante pour tous. Le document comprend deux chapitres principaux ptesentant le pourquoi et le comment des demarches qualite en recherche. Le chapitre pourquoi presente les enjeux generaux de la qualite en recherche. Les enjeux scientifiques sont induits par revolution des technologies de I'information qui rend les echanges plus rapides et I'enregistrement des connaissances plus puissant. Une maitrise renouvelee de garantie de validite des connaissances, de capitalisation des savoirs et de plus grande cteativite devient indispensable pour conserver la confiance dans la pratique scientifique. Les enjeux economiques et financiers portent sur I'optimisation des ressources allouees par les commanditaires et la capacite a en rendre compte. Les enjeux societaux et environnementaux portent sur la perception que le public peut avoir des implications et resultats de la recherche. Son interet croissant pour son avenir immediat et celui des generations futures induit une demands croissante d'anticipation des risques et de mise en ceuvre d'une demarche de precaution. Le chapitre comment propose de construire un cadre de coherence permettant a chaque acteur de la recherche de tefiechir sur ses manieres de fairs professionnelles et de choisir lui-mme les dispositifs appropries pour les ameiiorer. Trois principes fondent I'approche qualite proposes: pragmatisms, pedagogic et integration dans le contexte global de I'entite de recherche. Les actions d'amelioration sont identifies en declinant ces principes sur les trois temps forts ou phases principales d'une activity de recherche: definition de I'objectif initial, realisation de la recherche et valorisa tion des resultats. Les acteurs de la recherche sont invites a identifier eux-memes, en prenant en compte les interets de I'ensemble des parties prenantes, les criteres qualite les plus pertinents, les dispositions generates adaptees et ies solutions 161 Normalisation frangaise - FDX 50-550 concretes a mettre en place sur le terrain. Des exemples pour chacune des trois phases sont proposes pour illustrer cette methodologie. Le sens des demarches qual ite realisees a des nlveaux intermediaires est precise dans un contexts plus large qul int6resse I'ensemble de I'entite de recherche et de ses parties prenantes. Des sugges tions sur une demarche globale de progres sont proposees pour garantir et perenniser, sur le long terme, le succes des hommes et des organisations en recherche. En conclusion, la quality est avant tout un outil au service de la recherche. L'approche proposes consiste done a co-produire la quality, les savoirs et savoir-faire assoctes, par I'ensemble des parties prenantes dans le cadre d'un processus progressif et continu d'apprentissage. Dans tous les cas, il convient que cette demarche soit proportionnee aux enjeux scientifiques, voire financiers, parfois rrtediatiques ou politiques de Taction de recherche envisagee. DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REF! INTRODUCTION a recherche scientifique rassemble des acteurs qui conduisent des activitds de Lnature variees combinant des phases d'experimentation et d'observation critiques, des phases de developpement theorique et des phases de modelisation dont I'enchalnement n'est, le plus souvent, ni lineaire ni determinate. Les resultats de cette recherche se traduisent en connaissances et savoirs nouveaux qui, d'une maniere generate, notamment dans le domaine de la recherche fondamentale, sont consideres comme un bien commun de I'humanite, facteur de progres economique et social, I6gitimant, k terme, une large diffusion. Toutefois, cette position de principe n6cessite une attention d'autant plus soutenue que les retombees des resultats de la recherche sur la societe sont souvent difficiles a prevoir. Par ailleurs, ces resultats proviennent souvent de I'exploitation d'observations ou de donnees inattendues et de ce fait, les processus qui menent de I'intention initiale aux resultats ne peuvent pas toujours etre entierement definis ni decrits a priori. Compte tenu de ces specificites, la quality en recherche ne saurait etre definie, geree et assures avec les memes principes que ceux appliques aux activites en serie des mesures et des essais ou a une production k caractere repetitif. ^ TM La necessity d'une reflexion sur la demarche qualite en recherche a peu a peu penetre les milieux scientifiques et conduit le ministers en charge de la recherche A constituer, des 1996, un groups de travail representatif des organismes, institutions et entreprises concernes. Ce groupe a redige en 1997 un Guide Experimental pour la Qualite en Recherche proposant aux acteurs de la recherche une demarche souple qui leur laissait I'initiative des actions pertinentes a mener pour ameliorer la maitrise des processus de recherche et en assurer leur transparence. Confrontees a I'impact social et economique des avancees scientifiques, et dans un contexte de competition croissante, les parties prenantes de la recherche sont de plus en plus concernees par la mise en place d'une demarche visant a assurer la maTtrise de la qualite des processus de recherche et leur amelioration continue. Dans ce contexte, le ministere en charge de la recherche a mandate AFNOR, en juin 2000, pour constituer une Commission Qualite en recherche qui a regu la mission de poursuivre la reflexion engag6e et de produire un fascicule de documentation. La com mission a d6fini les principes fondamentaux de la demarche et produit, dans un premier temps, ce fascicule de portee generate a destination des differents acteurs de la 162 Normalisation frangaise - FDX 50-550 recherche. Dans un second temps, des documents applicatifs adaptes a diverses situ ations concretes faciliteront la mise en oeuvre sur le terrain de I'approche propos6e. Ecrit dans le respect de la diversity de toutes les disciplines, cultures, formations, organisations et initiatives deja congues et realisees, ce premier fascicule de documen tation a aussi vocation a presenter la position frangaise dans le domaine. NOTE Le terme activites de 1. DOMAINE DUPLICATION recherche entend la preparation, I'organisation, la realisation des e present fascicule de documentation a pour objet de formuler des recommanda- Ltions pour mettre en place une demarche qualite coherente dans les activites de travaux et les inevitables ajustements nEcessaires en cours de route ainsi que I'utilisation des resultats, les recherche ainsi que dans le fonctionnement des entites dans lesquelles elles sontnotions d'analyse du risque etant menses. II concerns toutes les formes de recherche, de la recherche fondamentale a la int6grees. recherche appliquee, quelle que soit la nature de I'entite dans laquelle elle est conduite (organisme, institution, entreprise, etc.). En revanche, le developpement (au sens indus- triel du terms) n'est pas specifiquement concern^. Ce document vise a susciter la reflexion des acteurs de la recherche sur leurs pra tiques professionnelles allant de la veille scientifique jusqu'a la sauvegarde des donnees, la diffusion et I'exploitation des resultats. Les redacteurs de ce document souhaitent que chacun puisse y trouver des indications utiles pour aborder la demarche qual ity ou poursuivre son experience dans son domaine propre de recherche. Ce fascicule ne fournit pas de dispositifs devaluation de la recherche (resultats, per NOTE Le terme acteur de la recherche" comprend tout individu ou groupe etant partie prenante ou deployant une action en relation avec un processus de recherche. II s'agit, tout d'abord, des chercheurs eux-memes, des ingenieurs, des techniciens, administrateurs et gestionnaires activement impliquEs dans les activites de recherche sonnels et entites), qui peuvent etre varies selon les organismes, institutions ou entre- II s'agit egalement de tout acteur se prises mais donnent necessairement un r6le important voire central a une expertise sci entifique par les pairs. II suggere toutefois que la qualite en recherche peut s'appuyer constituant partie prenante du processus de recherche, tels que des commanditaires, des beneficiaires ou sur de tels dispositifs et, le cas echeant, les rendre plus pertinents. des groupes d'utilisateurs (par exemple, une association de Le present document n'est pas destine a etre utilise dans un cadre reglementaire, consommateurs). contractuel, de certification ou d'accteditation. La liste des acteurs de la recherche varie pour chaque processus de recherche et au cours de celui-ci. II est done necessaire qu'elle soit 2. POURQUOI LA QUALITE EN RECHERCHE? prEcisee par les acteurs eux-mSmes et adaptEe au cours du processus. I introduction dans les laboratoires tant publics que prives d'une demarche qualite L en recherche adaptee repond a des enjeux at la fois scientifiques, economiques, ethiques et societaux, du fait des consequences humaines, sociales et environnemen- tales, dsormais majeures, de la recherche scientifique. DO CUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES 2.1 ENJEUX SCIENTIFIQUES Les n6cessites internes aux dynamiques scientifiques contemporaines et les besoins qu'eprouvent les chercheurs eux-memes d'organiser plus efficacement encore leurs activites en vue d'une plus grande creativity justifient la mise en place d'une demarche qualite. En effet, la recherche consistant a produire et a traiter de I'information et des connaissances, il est essentiel pour tous ses acteurs de maTtriser les moyens d'inscrip tion, de reproduction et de diffusion (voir note) et de pouvoir juger, en particular, de leur fiabilite et de leur validity. L'optimisation de I'organisation de la recherche pour reduire les constats de non-qualite (par exemple, la qualification tardive des donnees) et la capacity a faire face a la lourdeur et au cout croissant de I'organisation du travail ainsi qu'a la rarety des ressources (financiyres, humaines, yquipements, temps, etc.) deviennent egalement des enjeux importants. Bien entendu, la communaute scientifique met dyja en oeuvre des dispositifs favorisant la circulation et la maitrise de I'information dif fuses (revues et comites de lecture, reseaux informels de collogues, expertises, etc.). 163 m REFLEXIVES - SENHNAIRE ENCADRANTS - DOCTORANTS> Pratiques d'ferit, pratiques d* recherche - Marle-Claude Roland ... ... .. ""^iiiiliiiai Normalisation fran^aise - FDX 50-550 EXEMPLE Certains programmes de recherche, developpds au sein d'un meme laboratoire surde longues periodes (15 ans environ), sont realises essentiellement par des doctorants, qui restent dans I'equipe pour une duree limitee (typiquement, de 1 ci 4 ans). Les projets ainsi conduits peuvent etre poursuivis par d'autres dtudiants apres leur depart et il importe done que I'information produite, rassemblee et geree, puisse etre transmise de manure fiable. Le rapport de thdse et les publications ne suffisent pas A contenir cette information, partiellement tacite (par exemple, les motifs ayant prdsidd au choix d un type de modelisation ou a I'abandon d'une voie de recherche). De meme, la recherche scientifique produit de plus en plus de documents numdriques (textes, graphiques, sons, bases de donnees, modules 3D, simulations, etc.) dont la reproduction et la modification sont particulierement aisees. II en resulte une multiplication des documents et des versions qui posent de sErieux problfemes de gestion, d'arohivage, de stockage, de coordination entre les acteurs de la recherche, de tragabiliW, etc. Cependant, ces dispositifs peuvent presenter des faiblesses ou des biais et, surtout, ils ne peuvent donner toutes les assurances necessaires quant aux sources des ntethodes utilises et des resultats produits. 2.2 ENJEUX kONOMIQUES ET FINANCIERS Les considerations economiques et financieres sont devenues particulierement importantes en recherche. En effet, I'optimisation de I'efficience des moyens humains, tech niques et financiers se pose, tous les niveaux, aux entreprises, aux tutelles et aux divers responsables pour maintenir les ressources necessaires a une recherche com petitive au niveau national, europeen et international. De plus, dans de nombreux cas, les commanditaires publics ou prives veulent disposer de connaissances scientifiques fiables, avant de s'engager dans une phase de developpement, pour mieux en maTtriser les risques. Leur demande de qualite manifeste le souhait que les chercheurs fournissent des garanties sur leur production scientifique et sur leur capacity k g6rer au mieux les ressources allou6es. 2.3 ENJEUX SOClFTAUX ET ENVIRONNEMENTAUX Les produits de la science (connaissances, objets nouveaux et personnes dotees de competences) jouent un role croissant dans la societe moderne. En effet, les decouvertes scientifiques ont profondement affecte les conditions de vie de I'homme, sa vision du monde (voire meme son systeme de valeurs) ainsi que I'organisation de la societe. Meme si la contribution de la recherche au developpement 6conomique et humain des societes reste reconnue, son apport parart desormais plus ambigu, voire controverse, que par le passe. La science se trouve regulierement interpellee et mise en cause car elle introduit de nouvelles incertitudes, vecues par une large fraction de la societe comme une source de risques souvent inacceptable. Des lors, les chercheurs sont invites a reflechir aux risques eventuels associes a la dissemination sans precau tion" des informations qu'ils ont produites et/ou a expliquer la part d'lncertitude attachee aux resultats fournis. DOCUMENT STWCTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 2.4 ENJEUX POUR L'ORGANISME DE RECHERCHE ETSES CHERCHEURS Les parties prenantes de la recherche demandent a avoir confiance dans les connais sances scientifiques produites ainsi que dans les pratiques des chercheurs et des entites de recherche. Cette confiance est de moins en moins accordde a priori sur la seule base de la reputation des personnalites scientifiques ou des entites de recherche. La societe exige maintenant une relative transparence de I'activite de recherche et une maTtrise des processus mis en oeuvre (allant de la pertinence des orientations de recherche a la fiabilite des connaissances produites). Cette exigence centrale se pose sous deux aspects au moins: Lteligibilite d'une entite de recherche pour la conduite d'un programme commandite et finance par un tiers (I'Etat, la Commission Europeenne, par exemple). Dans un monde ou les entites de recherche sont de plus en plus en concurrence, le commanditaire a des exigences croissantes et reclame des garanties sur le produit qui lui est fourni pour I'investissement financier qu'il consent. Cette reconnaissance des entites de recherche, si importante dans le fonctionnement de la communaute scientifique, pourrait, k I'avenir, etre fondee sur des criteres complementaires au seul jugement actuel des pairs. La responsabilite des entites de recherche vis-a-vis des connaissances produites, dont il convient qu'elles tepondent selon des criteres bien etablis en specifiant les incer titudes et le domaine de validite. En cas de defaillance des resultats publics, la respon164 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES Normalisation frangaise - FDX 50-550 sability des entites pourrait etre mise en cause I'avenir, d&s lors, d'une part, que ces resultats s'avereraient erron6s du fait d'une flagrante mauvaise pratique scientifique et, d'autre part, que leur utilisation conduirait, d'une maniere ou d'une autre, a un impact inacceptable sur les personnes, sur certains biens communs ou sur I'environnement. 3. COMMENT DlVELOPPER LA QUALITY EN RECHERCHE? 3.1 gEnEralitEs L'examen attentif sur le terrain* des activity de recherche, dans leur diversity, ainsi que des pratiques professionnelles et des particularites culturelles de ce milieu montre qu'il est difficile de s'inscrire dans une simple demarche de conformity et d'appliquer les normes quality existantes. En particular, I'obligation, permanents et intrins^que en recherche, de gerer I'inattendu, I'incertain et le risque de ne pas aboutir doit etre au cceur de la demarche specifique proposes aux acteurs de la recherche si I'on vise une bonne acceptability par la communaute scientifique et, in fine, I'efficacite. Dans ce cadre, il convient d'allier une tres grande flexibility, parfaitement exploitable sur le ter rain, a la compatibility avec les normes existantes. La quality, outil au service de la recherche et non meta-discipline, ne peut raisonnablement pretendre fixer une mythodologie generate se substituant a celle qui se construit progressivement au sein meme de chacune des disciplines scientifiques au cours de son evolution. La quality peut, en revanche, offrir un cadre de cohyrence facilitant la reflexion de chacun sur ses manieres de faire professionnelles* afin de les amyiiorer de fagon continue. II convient que chacun puisse s'approprier I'approche proposye, c'est-y-dire la faire sienne, la redyfinir en fonction de ses contraintes spycifiques et la decliner en tenant compte de son propre contexts local. 3.2 SENS DE LA DEMARCHE QUALITE La mise en place d'une demarche quality au sein des entites de recherche attests la volonte de garantir, autant que raisonnablement possible, de bonnes pratiques scien tifiques. Cette demarche quality vise a valoriser les entites de recherche en : - fournissant des garanties reclamees par les commanditaires, le public et la commu- naute scientifique, - formant et valorisant les acteurs de la recherche a une culture renouvelee de rigueur et de responsability, - assurant la connaissance des limites de validity et done d'exploitation du resultat, - progressant confinement dans les pratiques quotidiennes 3.3 PRINCIPES DE BASE DE L'APPROCHE PROPOSEE Trois principes fondent la cohyrence et la robustesse de I'approche quality proposye : pragmatisme, pedagogic et intygration 3.3.1 Premier principe: Pragmatisme Les situations de recherche rencontrees dans la pratique sont caractyrisees par une tres grand diversity selon les disciplines, le caractere plus ou moins fondamental ou appliquy de la recherche, la nature et les exigences des partenaires impliques, la cul ture et I'histoire de I'organisme, de I'institut ou de I'entreprise. 165 Normalisation frangaise - FDX 50-550 1. Voir Bibliographic. NOTE Des examples sont donrtes au paragraphe 3.4. Les conclusions des travaux qui ont etudie les m6canismes de production des savoirs scientifiques1 montrent clairement I'impossibilite de definir un processus unique et universel de la recherche. Ceci results du fait que la demarche de recherche est rarement deterministe et Iin6aire, laissant ainsi la plus grande place au talent et k la cteativite du chercheur. C'est pourquoi, I'application du principe de pragmatisme amene a rechercher, avant toute chose, les approches propres et adaptees k la culture, au contexte et a la specificity de la communaute scientifique, et validees par elle. La methodologie generate peut etre decrite en trois temps : Dans un premier temps, il s'agit de se poser les bonnes questions" afin d'identifier les criteres qualite a prendre en consideration pour evaluer le succ6s ou le niveau de reussite de la demarche de recherche, depuis I'intention initiate qui definit I'objectif de la recherche jusqu'aux connaissances et informations nouvelles et originates qui en constituent les resultats, en passant par la realisation de la recherche. Dans un deuxieme temps, des dispositions a caractere general sont recherchees, et definies dans leur faisabilite pour satisfaire les criteres retenus. Celles-ci peuvent etre differentes selon les caracteristiques particulieres des processus de la recherche et de I'entite qui les conduit. Le poids de ces dispositions devrait etre fonction de la perti nence du critere, du type, des enjeux et de I'impact de la recherche engagee. Des pri0rites peuvent aussi etre etablies en fonction des ressources, budgets et delais induits par chacune des dispositions retenues. Dans un troisieme temps, les solutions concretes correspondant a ces dispositions sont determinees et mises en oeuvre sur le terrain. Leurs effets sont mesutes periodiquement afin de determiner si les criteres de reussite escomptes sont ou seront atteints. Le principe de pragmatisme conduit alors k integrer dans les pratiques courantes les dispositions qui apportent un progres. Les resultats des autres pourront etre analyses afin d'en d6duire des enseignements utiles. Plusieurs dispositions peuvent concourir a satisfaire un meme critere et plusieurs criteres peuvent se satisfaire en tout ou partie d'une meme disposition. Selon les cas, notamment suivant les necessites d'organisation de I'entite de recherche, criteres, dispositions et solutions conctetes peuvent etre definis par des acteurs identiques ou non, se situant par example a des niveaux hterarchiques ou fonctionnels differents. DOCUMENT STTOCTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 3.3.2 Deuxieme principe : PSdagogie L'approche proposes se veut pedagogique et cherche done a rendre progressivement naturelle la mise en place d'une demarche qualite dans toutes les activites de recherche. Pour etre pragmatique et preparer I'avenir, il convient en tout premier lieu d'interesser et de valoriser les jeunes chercheurs pour leur donner envie de s'investir dans les approches d'amelioration continue, tout en ayant I'accord du responsable de laboratoire sur la demarche envisagee et les gains a en esperer. II convient que le mes sage soit done simple, coherent et attractif. Dans ce contexte, trois points paraissent incontournables et indispensables pour reussir le demarrage et le developpement a long terme d'une demarche qualite: revaluation: elle est assoctee a la volonte de decrire et de mesurer ses pratiques professionnelles. L'auto-evaluation est r6alis6e de maniere interne et volontaire, elle consiste a se donner son propre referentiel, minimal ou plus ambitieux, pour realiser correctement I'activite de recherche. I'arrtelioration continue: elle identifie la methode et permet d'engager des actions pour parvenir a des progres lorsque des probtemes ou des ecarts sont constates entre 166 Normalisation frangaise - FDX 50-550 les pratiques quotidiennes resiles et celles prevues dans les ref6rentiels devaluation ou d'auto-evaluation. le systeme d'information : il est en quelque sorte la memoire de I'organisation et son exploitation devrait etre congue de maniere a ce que les savoirs et savoir-faire soient accessibles k tout acteur de la recherche des qu'il a des besoins d'information. La reussite d'un tel systeme apparaft quand il est auto-alimente par les acteurs euxmemes et que ceux-ci y trouvent alors naturellement un gain en retour. Ces points sont des leviers fondamentaux representant une base minimale pour tout cursus pddagogique associe au developpement d'une demarche quality en recherche. Le succds de toute demarche qualite en recherche est associe k I'existence simultanee de ces trois points. Les appliquer est une condition necessaire mais pas forcement suffisante. En effet, si un seul d'entre eux vient a manquer, la demarche qualite est inop6rante, mais s'ils existent tous, il est encore necessaire de ptevoir les ressources et les competences utiles pour atteindre les objectifs de I'entite en matiere de qualite en recherche. Ces trois piliers de toute demarche qualite sont done les garants methodologiques que les ressources allouees pourront etre utilisees avec pertinence et coherence. 3.3.3 Troisi&me principe: Integration La construction progressive d'un cadre de coherence implique qu'au dele des equipes de recherche elles-memes I'ensemble des services, departements ou directions internes d'une entite de recherche, ainsi que les fournisseurs exterieurs, soient concernes par la demarche qualite et d'ameiioration continue. Cette vision d'interdependance entre les chercheurs et les autres parties necessaires au bon deroulement de la recherche est tres importante pour concevoir une demarche coherente et robuste. En effet, il ne servirait a rien de fixer des objectifs ambitieux d'ameiioration pour les seuls chercheurs, si le reste de I'organisme ou de I'entreprise implique dans le processus de recherche ne contribue pas au meme effort. NOTE Les Etablissements d enseignement superieur, ayant des Ecoles Doctorates, pourraient utiliser les cursus d'enseignement delivrEs aux jeunes chercheurs pour les initier en theorie et en pratique aux concepts, outils et methodes de I'ameiioration continue des processus et de la recherche permanente de I'excellence dans les pratiques scientifiques. En plus du benefice direct pour le jeune chercheur en terme d'efficacite et de qualite dans ses travaux, le laboratoire d'accueil voit 6galement sa notortete augmenter par la valeur de ses acteurs et la confiance que les tutelies ou financeurs lui accordent. Embauclte en entreprise, le jeune chercheur y trouve souvent un environnement de management qualite ctej connu dans lequel il pourra deployer de nouvelles synergies et collaborations avec les acteurs scientifiques ayant le nteme niveau d'exigence qualite dans leurs pratiques. Tres souvent les acteurs lointains ou indirects de la recherche sont peu sensibilises ou n'ont pas une idee precise de I'impact reel de leurs propres activites sur le bon deroulement et la qualite des resultats d'une recherche. C'est pourquoi une approche p6dagogique devrait etre entreprise aupres d'eux afin de les aider a identifier en quoi leurs activites quotidiennes peuvent influer sur les performances finales en recherche. Cette sensibilisation, voire cette formation, peut utiliser les principes de pragmatisme et de pedagogie proposes precedemment. L'identification et la formalisation des processus existants pouvant influer sur la qualite en recherche est la premiere etape, incontournable, a toute perennisation des ameliorations mises en oeuvre a un niveau determine au sein de I'entite. Leur capitalisation et leur diffusion par un systeme d'in formation approprie au sein de I'entite permettra d'initier et de valoriser d'autres actions d'amelioration a d'autres niveaux, jusqu'a I'implication generalises de tous les acteurs de la recherche. Un tel environnement apprenant permet de garantir I'obtention pro gressive du cadre de coherence general par lequel se developpent les demarches qual ite au sein, et k I'exterieur, de I'entite de recherche. En resume, cette approche diffusante, pragmatique et pedagogique peut etre une fagon efficace de mettre en oeuvre, sur le moyen terme, une demarche qualite en recherche dans une vision globale et integr6e du management de I'entite. Celle-ci peut etre soumise a des contraintes diverses (financieres, administratives, reglementaires et legales, etc.) qu'il est aussi necessaire de maTtriser de maniere k contribuer k I'optimi- 167 DOCUMENT STOCTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - Normalisation fran^aise - FDX 50-550 sation generate de I'organisation. L'inttgration de tous les efforts d'am6lioration des pratiques quotldiennes des acteurs de la recherche dans un cadre de coherence compris par tous, commun et partage, est la garantie du succes pour I'entite de recherche 3.4 MISE EN (EUVRE DE L'APPROCHE QUALIlt Le deroulement d'une activite de recherche implique gdneralement un ensemble de processus qui peuvent etre regroup6s en trois temps forts, ou phases: Definition de I'objectif initial Realisation de la recherche Valorisation des resultats L'approche qualite consiste alors k identifier, pour chacun de ces temps forts, les criteres qualite les plus pertinents et les dispositifs adaptes et proportionnes a mettre en place dans un cadre de coherence determine par les trois principes exposes precedemment: pragmatisms, pedagogic et integration (figure 1). PRAGMATISME DO CUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - INTEGRATION PEDAGOGIE Figure 1 - Representation de l'approche qualite propos6e en recherche Si les trois phases proposees ici peuvent, bien sur, etre adoptees telles quelles par les entit6s et acteurs de la recherche, le principe de pragmatisms de l'approche pro poses voudrait cependant qu'ils reprennent eux-memes la reflexion en fonction de leurs propres caracteristiques (organisation, culture et formation des personnels impliqu6s) et de la nature des activites de recherches qu'ils conduisent. II est important, pour les acteurs de la recherche, de bien positionner les differentes activites de recherche afin d'en identifier les sp6cificites selon leur nature, les enjeux associes et le contexte, notamment organisationnel et decisionnel. II est en general utile de distinguer les projets de recherche de ceux dont I'objectif principal est la realisation d'un objet technique (instrumentation, etc.) ou d'un dispositif experimental, plus proches des projets classiques conduits en milieu industriel. De meme, les actions & caractere perenne, sur une thematique strategique pour I'entite de recherche, ont pour 168 Normalisation frangaise - FDX 50-550 vocation principale d1assurer le maintien et le cteveloppement de la competence des equipes ainsi que la capitalisation des connaissances, savoirs et savoir-faire accumul6s par ailleurs, notamment dans le cadre des projets. Cette approche permet d'eviter que les activites de recherche ne se voient appliquer un modele unique* de conduite de la recherche, non pertinent et ne prenant pas en compte leur diversity. [.'obligation de moyens ou de r6sultats associee a ces activites de recherche constitue egalement un indicateur interessant de distinction, comme le sont aussi la prennite des actions et la flexibility necessaire pour leur gestion. Voir I'annexe B sur des exemples d'activites de recherche. Dans les paragraphes qui suivent, chacun de ces trois temps forts est repris, et agtemente d'exemples, pour illus-trer la mise en oeuvre de I'approche proposee (identifica tion des criteres, determination des dispositions generates et specification des solutions concretes). DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES 3.4.1 Definition de I'objectif initial Cette phase essentielle fait intervenir toutes les parties prenantes des le debut d'une activity de recherche, en particulier dans le cas des projets qui nycessitent une gestion tres suivie. Selon les cas, I'objectif d'une recherche peut etre determirte par les chercheurs eux-mmes, un commanditaire ou par un processus de concertation dans lequel interviennent divers acteurs. Le point cle est de s'assurer qu'un dispositif adequat existe pour construire le consensus des acteurs sur I'objectif a atteindre et sur les criteres devaluation du succds de I'activity. Ce dispositif peut se dyrouler selon un processus dytermine et une procydure formalisee mais il peut aussi etre tres flexible et informel. II est toutefois important qu'il soit connu de tous a priori afin que les decisions prises soient tegitimes et transparentes. Dans ce contexte, il convient que les chercheurs et leurs collaborateurs se posent au moins trois questions importantes pour specifier les besoins concrets auxquels le dis positif quality peut aider & repondre: Quelles sont les parties prenantes de la recherche engagee (clients identifiables, commanditaires, utilisateurs, la society, etc.) qui, le cas ycheant, porteront un jugement sur le travail effectue et les resultats produits avec leurs propres regards, interets, criteres, etc. ? Quels sont leurs roles et leurs responsabilites respectives ? Comment prendre en compte, de maniere realiste, efficace et utile, leurs legitimes preoccupations?A cet egard, trois criteres de base apparaissent importants pour con struire la dymarche et choisir les dispositions les plus appropriees: a. La pertinence, ou la nouveauty et I'originality de cet objectif qui peuvent etre yvaluyes en relation avec l'etat de l'art. Ceci implique un travail de veille et de recherche documentaire qui, selon les cas, peut etre plus ou moins formalisy, mais dont I'efficacite devra etre appryciee afin d'en dyduire yventuellement des actions d'amelioration. Les meilleures pratiques de veille font I'objet de formations auptes des acteurs de la recherche et pourront etre capitalisyes dans le systeme d'information de I'entite afin de les rendre accessibles y tous. EXEMPLE : Crityre Pertinence/Nouveauty/ Originality Disposition 4 consitterer Evaluation de I'objectif par rapport a l'etat de l'art Solutions concretes Veille, bibliographie, contacts personnels NOTE La notion de .-relation clientfournisseur, qui est au centre de I'approche normative classique, etant trop restrictive dans le cas de la recherche, le present fascicule de documentation priviiegie les notions de <parties prenantes* ou d' ..acteurs de la recherche*. Ce choix se justifie notamment par le fait que le "Client* de la recherche peut etre tres diversify ou multiple, interne ou externe, clairement identifie mais aussi parfois difficile k dEfinir et sans existence formelle reconnue. Si le client eventuel est important, il convient en outre que I'entite de recherche se preoccupe aussi, notamment pour les organismes publics, des commanditaires au sens large (qui ne sont pas necessairement stricto sensu des ..clients*), des beneficiaires, des utilisateurs ou usagers et, d'une maniere plus generals, des attentes de la societe autant qu'elles puissent etre explicitees. Ainsi, la notion de ..clientfournisseur* peut apparaitre trop limitee k une relation marchande binaire qui n'est pas toujours un reflet pertinent de la situation k laquelle I'entite de recherche est en realite confrontee. Toutes ces remarques sont particulierement justifi6es en recherche fondamentale 0C1 les chercheurs sont eux-memes, au moins dans un premier temps, les principaux beneficiaires et utilisateurs des resultats de la recherche au sein d'une communaute scientifique internationals fonctionnant tres largement en reseaux. 169 Normalisation franfaise - FDX 50-550 b. L'opportunite de cet objectif qui pourrait etre appreciee en tenant compte des mis sions, de la strategie et des programmes de I'organisme, de I'institution ou de i'entreprise ainsi que de la conjoncture du moment. Le processus d'analyse de I'adequation entre la conjoncture et la strategie de I'entite devra etre identify et evalue dans son efficacite, par example en estimant les apports des objectifs consideres comme opportuns et en les comparant aux developpements externes a I'entite. EXEMPLE : Crit&re Opportunity Disposition e consid6rer Evaluation de I'objectif par rapport aux directions strategiques et aux besoins identifies Solutions concretes Analyse d'adequation conjoncture et strategie c. la faisabilite de la recherche envisagee peut faire I'objet d'une analyse de risque notamment au regard des competences et des moyens disponibles ou mobilisables (techniques, financiers, etc.). La solution concrete passe alors par une planification d'avant-projet qui repose sur des methodologies bien connues et qui peuvent etre appris es, diffusees, capitalists et evaluees assez facilement. EXEMPLE: Critere Faisabilite Disposition e consid6rer Evaluation des ressources a mobiliser Analyse de risque Solutions concretes Planification d'avant-projet DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - Compte tenu de ces trois criteres, pris comme exemples, il convient alors de mettre en place un dispositif de validation de I'objectif, assorti d'un minimum de formalisation, meme si celle-ci reste trds legere lorsqu'une procedure specifique n'est pas necessaire 1 (existence d'un comite ad hoc par exemple). Ce dispositif de validation de I'objectif ini tial exploite les elements associes aux criteres pour en retirer une decision de valida tion, positive ou negative, de I'objectif. Les criteres d'efficacite d'un tel dispositif de val idation pourraient etre les deiais de reponse et la pertinence a posteriori des decisions prises. Une telle evaluation, realisee a une periodicite adequate, permet a I'entite de recherche de maitriser et d'ameiiorer, au plus amont, sa chaTne de production scientifique. 3.4.2 Realisation de la recherche Les processus impliques dans cette phase sont au cceur de la recherche pour ce qui concerne Taction au quotidien des personnels de I'entite de recherche, au niveau de i'equipe ou dO laboratoire. Selon les cas, la mise en oeuvre des actions de recherche qui ont ete decidees pour atteindre I'objectif initial valide peut impliquer un dispositif plus ou moins structure voire, parfois, des exigences contraignantes. Le principe de base propose est d'assurer, dans tous les cas, une bonne maltrise des elements constitutifs de I'activite de recherche. Cependant, il est imperatif d'admettre qu'une recherche reellement originale comporte une part irreductible de risque de ne pas aboutir, d'incertitude et d'imprevu (meme si la faisabilite a ete correctement evaluee): une decouverte reellement signi ficative ne peut generalement pas etre programmee. A cet egard, il convient de distinguer nettement la recherche et la simple conduite d'essais et de tests.Dans ce contexte, les questions suivantes peuvent apporter un eclairage utile sur le processus de la recherche: 170 Normalisation fran^aise - FDX 50-550 Le processus mis en oeuvre pour conduire la recherche est-il crucial et peuHl etre decrit de maniere r6aliste et utile? Comment peut-on en maitriser les differentes stapes, les jalons et quels sont les dispositifs de suivi a mettre en place pour s'assurer de la conformity du deroulement de la recherche au processus attendu (si ce dernier peut etre dcrit a priori) ? Comment peut-on maitriser les ressources mises en ceuvre pour la realisation de la recherche et quels sont les dispositifs a mettre en place pour s'assurer que Ton optimisera le retour d'exp6rience>> (notamment si le processus ne peut etre valablement decrit qu'a posteriori) ? Comme exemple, les criteres consideres comme importants dans une conduits de recherche pourraient etre les suivants: a. L'objectrf est, autant que possible, communique activement a tous les niveaux concern6s et impliques, poursuivi avec perseverance et maitrise avec des resultats intermediaires quantifies et enregistres. Le cas echeant, une inflexion et/ou une revision de I'objectif initial peut etre consideree en concertation avec I'ensemble des parties prenantes de la recherche. Comme exemple, considerons que I'approche quality appliquye ici induit a choisir comme prioritaire, parmi de nombreux autres crityres, la capacity a repondre de ses recherches (transparence). Le principe de pragmatisms conduit alors aux solutions NOTE Les processus, representation symbolique sur laquelle I'homme peut agir, sont au coeur a la fois des normes actuelles et du metier de la recherche. II convient done d'aborder plus en detail cette notion pour la mettre en perspective dans le contexte de la qualite. De maniere schematique, deux situations peuvent se presenter en recherche: 1. La description a priori du processus de recherche est possible et utile, en terme d'efficacite et de motivation des personnels, d'une maniere concrete et surtout realiste, de son lancement e sa fin. Dans ce cas, la demarche qualite mise en place se concentrera sur des dispositifs visant Et accompagner et suivre ce processus en identifiant ses diffe-rentes phases, sa planification, ses jalons, ses revues regulieres et les actions necessaires. concretes suivantes dont les apports et I'efficacite sont periodiquement revus. EXEMPLE : Crftyre Disposition y considyrer Solutions concrytes Transparence Assurer la tragabilite des travaux et des rysultats Cahiers de laboratoire, rapports d'etapes, etc. Une pydagogie adaptee permettra ensuite de diffuser le pourquoi et le comment des solutions a mettre en oeuvre. Les acteurs de la recherche concemes pourront alors mieux s'approprier les objectifs ultimes recherches et exploiter leur creativity et leur expyrience professionnelle pour rendre les solutions totalement opyrationnelles. I Les meilleures pratiques, validees par I'expyrience et les rysultats, devraient ensuite ~ etre capitalisees grace au systyme d'information, qui en donne I'acces a tout acteur des qu'il en a le besoin. b. Le temps allouy a!'activity de recherche est, autant que possible, respecty. Lorsque 2. La description a priori du processus de recherche n'est pas possible ni realiste ou utile du fait de la nature meme de I'activity de recherche (domaines trEs exploratoires, mathematiques, physique thEorique, etc.). En revanche, il est toujours possible, realiste, et le plus souvent trds utile, de specifier a posteriori le cheminement intellectuel, technique et scientifique que I'equipe de recherche a effectivement parcouru lorsqu'elle a attaint son but ou choisi de faite une pose pour ryftechir Et son action. Dans ce cas, la dymarche quality mise en place priviiygiera les dispositifs d'apprentissage des savoirs et des savoir-faire, de retour d 'expyrience et de capitalisation des connaissances. cela est possible, deroulement lui-meme de la recherche est maitrise en ryfyrence aux pryvisions initiales et, notamment, aux jalons identifiys. Ci-dessous, un exemple de enters conduisant a des solutions concretes est donny. Comme precydemment, peda gogic et capitalisation des meilleures pratiques sont ensuite dyveloppyes. EXEMPLE : Crityre Disposition & considyrer Solutions concrytes Dyiais des ytapes Assurer la tenue des dyiais Revues pyriodiques, actions corrective et preventives DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES Le respect des dyiais est un critere qui peut avoir une forte sensibility suivant la rigueur de nombreux acteurs de la recherche, aussi bien ceux proches de I'activite de recherche (jeunes chercheurs, doctorants, technicians) que ceux plus lointains qui y contribuent de manure indirecte, comme les fournisseurs exterieurs ou les services internes qu'ils soient de gestion, de support logistique d'informatique ou tout autre. Un simple courrier ou echantillon qui n'arrive pas ou une autorisation de deplacement qui tarde, peut influer par exemple sur le respect du dyiai final. 171 Normalisation franfaise - FDX 50-550 Le principe d'intygration est alors une reponse efficace pour fairs prendre con science progressivement a tous les acteurs de la recherche de I'impact reel que leurs activites ont sur celles des autres. Les instances de decision au plus haut niveau de I'entitS de recherche peuvent prendre la responsabilite d'une demarche d'intygration des developpements quality afin d'en garantir la meilleure performance. c. Les ressources mobilises et moyens mis en oeuvre sont, autant que possible, maitrises notamment aux plans technique et methodologique, et la cr6ativit6 est favoris6e a tous les niveaux. Des exemples de entires conduisant k des solutions con cretes sont donnes ci-apres. Comme pr6cedemment, p6dagogie, capitalisation des meilleures pratiques et integration des demarches qualite peuvent ensuite etre d6velopp6es pour en garantir la performance. EXEMPLE : Crityre Creativite Disposition k consid6rer Favoriser et respecter les espaces de liberty a tous les niveaux Solutions concretes Lieux de d4bats, echanges, dialogues,... Ressources techniques Assurer la meilleure Tenue d'un inventaire, exploitation des ressources maitrise de la maintenance, techniques maitrise de la calibration,... DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - d. Le risque de ne pas aboutir est, autant que possible, minimise. Ce critere est souvent delaisse car il est a I'oppose de la creativite et de I'enthousiasme naturels du chercheur. II est pourtant intrinseque a I'activity de recherche, qui peut tres bien conduire a des resultats non attendus, mais parfois plus interessants. Le risque de ne pas aboutir dans un projet de recherche devient alors secondaire par rapport au risque de ne pas trouver de nouvelles connaissances. Quel que soit le resultat scientifique, celui-ci ne peut etre obtenu que dans la continuity des efforts de recherche. II s'agit alors d'4viter les ruptures d'objectif, de delate ou de ressources en prevoyant des alternatives aux prob- lemes majeurs qui pourraient raisonnablement se produire. EXEMPLE: Crityre Risque de ne pas aboutir Disposition k considdrer Solutions concretes Pr4voir des alternatives aux probiymes majeurs qui pourraient apparaitre Liste des probiymes. estimation de leur occurrence et de leur effets sur la recherche Identification des solutions alternatives Elaboration d'un plan d'action pour les cas prioritaires II convient d'assurer une revaluation reguliere de ces diff4rents points (objectif, temps, ressources et moyens, risque de ne pas aboutir) avec un processus adequat impliquant I'ensemble des parties prenantes. En particulier, de nouveaux objectifs (secondaires) peuvent apparaitre en cours de developpement et se reveler beaucoup plus interes sants et/ou importants que I'objectif initial, y compris pour les commanditaires de la 172 Normalisation franfaise - FDX 50-550 recherche qu'il convient d1 informer. Le dispositif de devaluation dguliere peut rester tres IEger et informel lorsqu'une procedure specifique n'est pas nEcessaire. (comite ad NOTE Le produit de la recherche, tant fondamentale qu'appliquEe, est hoc, reunions pEriodiques de revue avec le commanditaire par exemple). il est possible Egalement de proceder a des evaluations approfondies des processus et du systems qualite, en tant que de besoin. Dans ce cas, il convient de faire intervenir des person- constituE d'un ensemble, souvent complexe, d'Elements qui ne peuvent pas toujours etre definis et specifiEs E I'avance avec une grande prEcision. nes competentes <jugement professionnel par les pairs) pour auditor, sur le fond, le Cet ensemble est notamment dispositif de conduite de la recherche mis en oeuvre sans se limiter a un examen pure- constituE d'informations et de ment formelle plus souvent inutile. connaissances nouvelles, d'argumentaires sur les limites de ces connaissances et leur domaine de 3.4.3 Valorisation des r&sultats La valorisation des rEsultats obtenus par I'entitE de recherche est une phase essentielle, non seulement du fait de I'investissement intellectuel et financier qui a ete consenti mais validitE ainsi que de questions nouvelles clairement explicitees. Les rEsultats qui ne correspondent pas a I'objectif initial ainsi que les aussi parce qu'elle fonde la reconnaissance que les acteurs de la recherche peuvent voies de recherche abandonnEes, attendre de leur action. peuvent cependant avoir un fort impact et une grande valeur, y Dans ce contexte, pour cerner le produit de la recherche, les chercheurs et leurs collaborateurs pourraient par exemple se poser les questions suivantes : Quels sont les resultats attendus de la recherche pour les differentes parties prenantes? compris pour le commanditaire qui peut trouver intEret E accompagner les Evolutions de la recherche. Une vEritable dEcouverte est, par dEfinition, imprEvisible.il serait bien Quels enseignements peut-on tirer des voies de recherche abandonnees et des resul surprenant que ses caractEristiques tats inattendus? y a-t-il un consensus sur les criteres devaluation du succes de I'activite de recherche? prEcises, en tant que produit de la recherche, figurent dans le cahier des charges initiates. Comment valoriser au mieux les resultats de la recherche pour optimiser la satisfac De plus, le rEsultat d'une recherche tion des differentes parties peut fort bien aboutir E mieux prenantes? formuler la question initiale (voire E conclure qu'elle est dEnuEe de sens) La valorisation des resultats de la recherche comprend au moins les deux aspects suivants: a. La validation des resultats avant leur diffusion a I'exterieur de I'entitE de recherche. ou encore E rebondir vers une recherche plus fondamentale comme Etape qualifiEe indispensable E la poursuite de cette recherche. En particular, il convient de valider la signification des resultats, I'utilisation envisages Une autre spEcificitE importante du des connaissances et les incertitudes qui leur sont attachees. ~ EXEMPLE: -produit" de la recherche est le caractEre public E terms des connaissances produites ce qui implique que les rEgles de diffusion CritEre Disposition & considErer Solutions concrEtes et de protection de I'information Validation des resultats Reunir un groupe 1) Comite ad hoc soient clairement dEfinies en amont de la recherche elle-mEme et soient avec les competences 2) Reseau d'experts,... applicables sans contraintes adequates injustifiEes vis-E-vis du chercheur pour qui la publication est E la fois un REaliser les tests adequats Analyses statistiques principe, voire une raison d'Etre, et frEquemment un critEre d'Evaluatlon. b. Le transfert des resultats, aprEs validation, a toutes les parties prenantes. Selon les cas, la diffusion peut etre plus ou moins etendue (un certain niveau de confidentialite peut notamment etre requis) et prendre des formes variees (publications dans les journaux scientifiques, congrEs, colloques, expertise, brevet, etc.). c. II convient d'Etre attentif a eviter toute publication prEmaturee s'il est envisage de proteger juridiquement la pro-priEtE industrielle des travaux. De meme une charte peut etre proposes a tous les acteurs de la recherche avant le debut des travaux afin de preciser leurs droits et leurs devoirs. DO CUM ENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 173 Critere Exploitation industrielle rapide des tesultats Disposition k considerer Solutions conctetes Transfert de technologie Proprtete intellectuelle, brevets, contrats industriels Maximiser 1'impact scientifique des tesultats Cibler le public concerne et les meilleurs vecteurs de communication Journaux a large facteur d'impact, distribution de tires a part, redaction d'ouvrages, diffusion sur Internet,... Un dispositif adequat peut etre mis en place afin de decider de la validation et de la valorisation les plus appropri6es a chaque cas. Ce dispositif peut rester tres leger et informel lorsqu'une procedure sp6cifique n'est pas n6cessaire (comite ad hoc, par exemple). Une evaluation periodique de I'efficacite de ce dispositif devrait etre realisee afin d'en garantir les apports et la performance. DO CUMENT STFOCTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - 4. PERSPECTIVES I evolution progressive des concepts dans le domaine de la quality conduit k ne L plus seulement considerer I'activite de recherche en terme simple de projet. II s'agit en fait d'une activity delicate et complexe, associant homme et technologie, operationnel et fonctionnel, individu et collectivite, rationnel et irrationnel dans le contexte global de I'entite de recherche. La performance d'une activite de recherche pourrait aujourd'hui etre consideree, avant tout, dans les dimensions principals suivantes: 1. Management de I'entite : coupler le pilotage, I'organisation, I'environnement et la communication; definir la raison d'etre et les enjeux pour I'entite; analyser ses forces et faiblesses futures au regard des besoins nouveaux et des consequences societales des tesultats attendus; anticiper et etablir des scenarios c'est-a-dire une strategic; agir pour disposer des ressources necessaires; mesurer periodiquement le bon avancement de I'activite. A titre d'exemple, un organigramme clair a autant d'importance pour donner confiance dans la qualite d'organisation d'une activite de recherche, que les references individuelles des participants. 2. Valorisation et reconnaissance des hommes: motiver, entrainer et faire comprendre les enjeux, objectifs et actions concretes de I'activite de recherche. Valoriser les bons tesultats (scientifiques et organisationnels), etudier les acquis et les ameliorations possibles pour reduire des hearts inattendus. Positiver systematiquement les analyses et les conclusions afin que les acteurs a tout niveau se sentent reconnus, compris, accompagnes et valorises. C'est ainsi qu'ils pourront donner naturellement le meilleur d'eux-memes. Puisque I'acte de recherche decoule avant tout d'un fonctionnement col lects, la cellule de base est I'equipe constitute d'individus formas et informes dont la valorisation (collective et individuelle) fait aussi partie du management qualite. II convient alors de rappeler que la formation continue, les seminaires et colloques, sont essentiels pour ameliorer constamment la qualite de la recherche (apprentissage) et que le principe de la bonne personne a la bonne place est aussi une base d'organisation efficace. 3. Maftrise des risques : evaluer les risques et consequences de ne pas aboutir, agir pour prevoir des suites ou des alternatives; tvaluer la validite (et ses limites) du resultat 174 Normalisation franfaise - FDX 50-550 de la recherche, agir pour etre en mesure d'en rendre compte; ^valuer la performance de la valorisation, agir pour I'optimiser continument; ^valuer Involution de la concur rence scientifique, agir pour se positionner de maniere originate et pertinente; evaluer le risque de derive cause par les criteres de mesure, qu'ils soient economiques ou autres, sur I'objectif final, agir pour le minimiser. Cette vision globale de la quality, veritable demarche de progres, peut se traduire par un domaine d'application plus vaste que les seules activites de recherche et par un management ouvert et integre. Par exemple, les actions de portbe generate qui peuvent etre menees au sein de I'entite pour contribuer a une demarche de progres sont: la diffusion de la quality dans la culture commune des equipes, services, departements et directions, la definition d'une vision et la mise en oeuvre d'une strategie commune, la valorisation et la reconnaissance de I'implication de tous dans la demarche, le management par les faits, leur mesure et I'identification des processus y ayant contribue, I'analyse de ses propres raisons d'etre, methodes et pratiques quotidiennes pour en rechercher les ameliorations, la volonte permanente de I'excellence par apprentissage, comparaison et iterations d'ameliorations, la prise en compte de revolution des besoins de la societe, de I'environnement et des generations futures,... Enfin, pour developper de maniere operationnelle la demarche de progres, deux phas es majeures peuvent etre conduites chronologiquement: d'abord une planification strategique qui positionne clairement les enjeux et les resultats recherches puis le deploiement des politiques, priorite et objectifs de I'entite de recherche et des plans d'action qui en decoulent. Si la seconde phase est habituelle dans la demarche scien tifique, la premiere peut permettre, dans un scenario cyclique a plusieurs annees, d'adapter periodiquement I'entite de recherche aux evolutions des besoins et realites de la societe, dans une veritable dynamique qui accompagne et g6nere le progres. 175 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES RARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES Normalisation franfaise - FDX 50-550 BIBLIOGRAPHIE OUVRAGES [1] Sociologie des sciences, D. Vinck, Armand Colin, coll. U, Paris, 1995. [2] Le dispositif franpais de normalisation. Evaluation et perspectives. Commissariat General au Plan. Rapport au Gouvernement, La documentation franpaise, Paris, 1998. [3] Dictionnaire de la Qualite, R. Foch, Ed Sapienta, 1998, ISBN 2-911761-05-7. [4] Management de la Qualite, Jean-Marie Gogue, Ed Economica Gestion Poche, 1993, ISBN 2-7178-2545-2. [5] La Qualite, L. Cruchant, Ed PUF collection Que Sais-je, 1993, ISBN 2-13-046662-1. [6] La Qualite au quotidien, Jean Fau, Ed Polytechnica, 1992, ISBN 2-84054-006-. [7] Le manager a I'ecoute du sociologue, Pierre Morin & Eric Delavallee, Ed. d'organisation, 2000, ISBN 2 708124471. NORMES [8] NF EN ISO 9000 :Systeme de management de la qualite - Principes essentiels et vocabulaire, d6c. 2000. [9] NF EN ISO 9001 : Systeme de management de la qualite - Exigences, dec. 2000. [10] NF EN ISO 9004 : Systeme de management de la qualite - Lignes directrices pour I'amelioration des performances, dec. 2000. [11] NF EN ISO 10006 : Management de la qualite - Lignes directrices pour la qualite en management de projet, sept. 1998. [12] NF EN ISO/CE117025 : Prescriptions generates concernant la competence des laboratoires d'etalonnages et d'essais, mai 2000. rEglementation [13] Directive 1999/11/CE de la Commission Europeenne du 8 mars 1999 portant adaptation au progres technique des principes de bonnes pratiques de laboratoire vises dans la directive 87/18/CEE du Conseil concernant le rapprochement des dispositions legislatives, reglementaires et administratives relatives a I'application des principes de bonnes pratiques de laboratoire et au controle de leur application pour les essais sur les substance chimiques (texte presentant de I'interet pour I'EEE), JOCE 23 mars 1999, L 77/8. LIENS SUR INTERNET [14] OCDE: I'OCDE est souvent I'initiateur de reflexions sur les Bonnes Pratiques de Laboratoires (BPL) qui sont ensuite declinees au niveau europeen: http://www.oecd.Org//ehs/ehsmono/. [15] Europe: le site de la Commission Europeenne sur les Bonnes Pratiques de Laboratoire: http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/chemicals/qlp/aip. htm. [16] Guide experimental pour la qualite en recherche, 1997 : http://www.recherche.gouv.fr. 176 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - Normalisation frangaise - FDX 50-550 Annexe A (informative) HISTORIQUE DE LAQUALITE u-dete de toute definition, il importe surtout de comprendre I'intention profonde de Ala demarche Qualite dont les conceptions ont d'ailleurs fortement evolue avec le temps. Schematiquement, quatre etapes principales peuvent etre distinguees dans le d6veloppement de cette notion, chacune d'entre elles gardant toujours sa valeur dans son domains d'application specifique: Le Controle Qualite (annees 50-60) qui correspondait a la volonte des industriels d'assurer le minimum de rejets dans leur production. Cet aspect de la qualite s'est prolonge jusqu'a nos jours. Initialement affecte en bout de chaTne, le controle qualite s'est progressivement integre en amont, a tous les maillons de la chaTne de production. Des gains importants de qualite (au sens de la conformite aux specifications des produits) ont ainsi et6 obtenus, notamment dans I'industrie. La soumission des articles scientifiques, avant publication, a des revues exigeantes (examen par les pairs, etc.) est pour les chercheurs une forme typique de controle Qualite final. L'Assurance de la Qualite (annees 70-80) vise a donner confiance au client dans le fait que la qualite attendue est effectivement obtenue. II s'agit essentiellement d'une demarche d'anticipation pour la martrise des risques fondee sur I'anaiyse et la rational isation des processus en jeu, la determination des points critiques et sources possibles de probiemes et de mise en place d'actions preventives. Les normes ISO 9000 et les certifications associees ont joue un role determinant dans I'extension de I'assurance qualite dans de nombreuses entreprises du monde entier. Mai utilisees dans certains cas, les normes ont pu conduire a des derives paperassieres et a une lourdeur qui ont fortement entame son credit dans le monde de la recherche mais que ce guide souhaite precisement eviter. La Qualite Totale (annees 80- 90) introduit une conception globale de la qualite dans laquelle le rdle des hommes est essentiel. Cette demarche, qui se veut a I'oppose du | Taylorisme, cherche a impliquer tous les acteurs pour qu'ils participent, de leur propre initiative, a une amelioration continue des resultats dans I'interet bien compris de I'entreprise et de ses parties prenantes (clients, fournisseurs, societe). Cette approche r6cente, encore en d6veloppement, semble la mieux adaptee pour la recherche, notam ment parce qu'elle conduit a prendre en compte, non seulement les entites de base de la recherche (laboratoires), mais aussi les unites de soutien et I'ensemble de ('organisa tion. Le Management de la Qualite (annees 2000). Dans cette approche systemique, la qualite resulte du bon fonctionnement d'un systeme de management de la qualite coherent et integre dans le systeme global de management de I'organisme. A travers la definition des orientations, des ressources, leur deployment, la planification, la preven tion, la maTtrise, I'ameiioration, le systeme de management de la qualite vise I'obtention de resultats chez les clients et I'adaptation permanente aux changements. L'organisme est envisage comme un ensemble de processus en boucle qui est tire vers I'ameiiora tion continue. Les nouvelles normes ISO 9000 version 2000 s'inscrivent dans cette approche. Ces normes sont congues pour etre utilisees par tous types d'organismes. En recherche cependant, il n'est pas toujours aise d'identifier clairement le client et ses besoins, ni de decrire et done de maitriser les processus conduisant aux resultats. Cela justifie pleinement que le domaine de la recherche se dote d'approches qualite, cedes compatibles avec celles des normes ISO 9000 version 2000, mais qui peuvent repondre a la diversite des activites et des cultures en recherche. 177 Normalisation franfaise - FDX 50-550 Annexe B (informative) EXEMPLES D'ACTIVITES DE RECHERCHE e but essentiel d'une reflexion sur le positionnement des activitds de recherche est Lde faire en sorte que le dispositlf quality soit adapts et dimensioned de fagon a repondre aux besoins reels des parties prenantes de la recherche et a des exigences justifides. L'adaptabilite et I'applicabilite sont en effet deux principes fondamentaux de la demarche qualitd en recherche preconisde dans ce fascicule de documentation. II est necessaire que le dispositif adoptd par I'entitd de recherche prenne en particular en compte la nature de I'activite de recherche, les enjeux associes et le contexte organisationnel et global dans lequel elle se ddroule. Dans tous les cas, il convient que les acteurs de la recherche prennent en compte les elements suivants pour la conduite de I'activite de recherche et des supports associds: L'objectif (ou les resultats attendus); Le ddlai d'obtention ou de rdalisation (dchdance); Les ressources (humaines, techniques et financieres) mises en oeuvre; Les risques de ne pas rdussir inherents k toute recherche. Selon leur capacitd a mattriser simultandment ou non ces quatre dldments et k en assurer la cohdrence, en fonction de la nature reelle de la recherche entreprise et des enjeux associds, les acteurs de la recherche adaptent le dispositif qualitd (critdres, dis positions, solutions concretes) aux besoins reels des parties prenantes. Les quatre families d'activites, illustrdes sur la figure B.2, sont frdquemment rencontrdes: Nature jj i de ('obligation Moyens Projets de recherche REsultats Projets de realisation Court / moyen terme Actions thdmatiques Activites fonctionnelles et de support Long terme ""IP*1 "" Figure B. 2 Examples de cartographic d'activitds de recherche DOCUMENT STFtlCTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFI Les actions thdmatiques Elies correspondent aux activitds pdrennes mises en oeuvre par I'entitd pour maintenir et ddvelopper la competence de ses equipes, et leur permettre d'engager des actions exploratoires et innovantes a un stade ou la maltrise des connaissances preambles et des mdthodes n'est pas suffisante pour mettre en place un projet. Ces actions peuvent inclure des activitds de veille, d'anticipation, de formation continue (du type dcoles d'dtd par exemple). Souvent sous-estime, ce type d'actions est ndanmoins stratdgique car il permet aux dquipes de conserver, sur le moyen et le long terme, un position nement scientifique et technique addquat dans des logiques disciplinaires ou de champ d 'application. Dans certains secteurs, les actions thdmatiques peuvent constituer la modalitd normals de conduite d'une activitd de recherche impliquant une grande soup- 178 DO CUM ENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES - Normalisation franfaise - FDX 50-550 lesse de gestion (finalite non fig6e a priori). Les actions thematiques sont le lieu priv ate ou peuvent s'effectuer la capitalisation des connaissances, savoirs et savoir-faire accumules par ailleurs (notamment dans les projets de recherche et les projets de real isation) mais aussi le maintien ou le developpement des metiers qu'implique toute strategic a long terme d'une entity de recherche. Dans une organisation mobilisant la gestion par projets, I'existence d'actions thematiques est essentielle. Celles-ci fondent la capacity des equipes ci tepondre de maniere pertinente et attractive & un appel d'offre et permettent, si necessaire, de reactiver des competences dans des champs don nes. Ce type d'activite de recherche est clairement soumis a une obligation de moyens, qui constitue le fondement de la responsabilite de I'entity de recherche et une base de reflexion pour definir les criteres quality. Les projets de recherche lls peuvent etre mis en place lorsqu'il s'agit principalement d'acquerir des connais sances nouvelles. Ce type d'activite de recherche ptesente des incertitudes parfois irreductibles de sorte que les elements definissant habituellement un projet (objectif, d6lais, moyens, risques) ne sont pas toujours simultanement mattrisables. Le dispositif qualite approprte & la conduite d'un projet de recherche repose sur des criteres qualite que les acteurs, en concertation avec la hierarchie mais egalement les commanditaires exterieurs, identifient et satisfont eux-memes en mettant en place les dispositions generates et les solutions concretes idoines. Ce type d'activite de recherche est generalement soumis a une obligation de moyens, qui constitue le fondement de la responsabilite de I'entite de recherche et une base de reflexion pour definir les criteres qualite. Les projets de realisation lls peuvent etre d'instrumentation, d'application, de developpement, etc. et sont mis en place lorsqu'il s'agit de concevoir, de realises de finaliser un outil, un systeme, un modele, un dispositif technique ou instrumental visant a repondre, sur la base d'un cahier des charges, aux besolns exprimes par un commanditaire interne ou externe. Le recueil de donnees dans le domaine socio-6conomique peut egalement relever de ce type d'action. Ces projets different des projets de recherche essentiellement par I'imposition de delais relativement figes et la definition precise des produits attendus. lls corre spondent a la notion classique de projet industriel entratnant, le plus souvent, la maitrise simultanee des elements constitutlfs de I'actlvite (objectif, deiais, moyens, risques). lls sont clairement soumis a une obligation de resultats, qui constitue le fondement de la responsabilite du responsable du projet et de I'entite de recherche impliquee et une base de reflexion pour definir les criteres qualite. Les acteurs de la recherche peuvent s'appuyer sur des reterentiels deja existants. Les activites fonctionnelles et de support Elies recouvrent les activites assoctees a la conduite d'une activite de recherche (par exemple, la gestion financiere, I'administration, le service juridique, etc.). Selon les organisations, les supports techniques de la recherche (services informatiques, servic es d'analyses, d'electronique ateliers de rrtecanique,...) peuvent relever d'une relation du type commanditaire/acteur dans laquelle les chercheurs, ingenieurs et techniciens sont les clients. Ces activites peuvent faire I'objet d'une demarche qualite classique (par example ISO 9001:2000). 179 180 DOCUMENT STRICTEMENT RESERVE A L'USAGE PERSONNEL DES PARTICIPANTS AUX REFLEXIVES -