An ethical analysis of the phenomenon of misconduct in research

Ethical problems of research misconduct can be viewed in many ways. The main issue at stake is the reliability of what is presented as scientific facts. If we cannot trust research findings, the consequences can be fatal for all affected parties. There are several actors in the context of research integrity and misconduct, especially the individual scientist and the scientific community. The honesty of scientists is important but this in itself is not a sufficient condition for research integrity. We need guidelines and rules. Researchers accused of misconduct must be guaranteed legal security. A closed definition of scientific misconduct seems to be the best one for protecting the legal security, but on the other hand, an open definition is better for the protection of science. There is a gap between ethics and law in the view of research misconduct. Some actions that are regarded as unethical are quite well within the law. In order to deal with real cases of alleged research misconduct, there must be a way of closing this gap.