B – Ethical guidelines by professional societies

Zigmond MJ. Making ethical guidelines matter. American Scientist 2011;99(4):296
(doi: 10.1511/2011.91.296)

Today more than 50 scientific societies have written guidelines on research ethics for their members. These societies are uniquely positioned to understand and develop effective codes of conduct for the specific segment of science that they represent. Research institutions can set standards only for the most basic and universal matters, such as plagiarism and fabrication of data. The example of guidelines issued by the American Society for Neuroscience (SfN) is provided illustrating how a professional society can go beyond guidelines alone to promote research integrity in other dynamic ways.