Responsible Conduct of Research - Year 1 (2024-III)

Target audience

Compulsory course for all GSLS PhD Candidates whose PhD tracks start from 1 September 2020 onwards. 

Open for registration to all other GSLS PhD Candidates.

This course is the first part out of a series of four, which are introduced as a compulsory training for PhDs at Utrecht University.

Course description

Being a scientist is complicated. You have to deal with responsibilities towards your colleagues, your profession, science in general and society. On top of that, you have to perform state of the art research providing thrilling results and new insights for the life sciences.

Everyone knows that one should not cheat in science, but still it happens. Why? This course will help you to remain a good citizen in science. The main aspects of responsible conduct of research will be discussed in short by examples taken from the life sciences. Tools will be provided to withstand the seductions and challenges put on you by supervisors, “the system” and your own ambitions. In addition, we will also discuss daily life experiences in research practice which will help you to responsibly maneuver through the grey areas of science.

Learning objectives

Participants learn strategies on how to discuss and deal with issues and dilemmas that occur in life science research; and they will learn to deal with these issues from a Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) perspective. Furthermore, participants learn to identify breach of RCR by other researchers, e.g., in publications, research proposals, and behaviour.

Instructional method

Participants prepare for the course by reading an article on RCR. 1) A lecture will introduce the different aspects of RCR in the life sciences. 2) Participants will subsequently discuss in small outbreak groups either premade dilemmas, or they can enter their own experience as a discussion topic. 3) The outbreak groups will shortly present their dilemma, the discussion outcome and considerations in a plenary session.

Trainer

Erik Aarnoutse is senior researcher at the Neurology and Neurosurgery department of the University Medical Center Utrecht. He works on Brain-Computer Interfaces, which aid people with Locked-In Syndrome in their daily communication needs by replacing the lost muscle control by decoding attempted movement from the brain. He also works on an implantable device for seizure reduction in epilepsy patients. Conducting a clinical trial with vulnerable participants with implanted medical devices triggered interest in many aspects of responsibility: ethical aspects, high quality standards for safety and performance of medical devices, high standards for gathering, analysing and managing of very precious data, communication with (inter)national media on results and future prospects. He served as a board member of the BCI society. He is also Quality Manager of a spin-off medical software company.

Group size         

50 participants

Number of credits                                 

0.15 EC

Course schedule

Preparation: You will need to read an article on RCR (1 hour preparation time).

Course certificate                                

You will receive a course certificate after actively participating in the full session.

Cancellation and No-show policy

This course is free for GSLS PhD candidates. However: free of charge does not mean free of responsibility. Once you have signed up for a course, we expect you to attend. For every late cancellation or no-show we have had to disappoint others who would have liked to attend. This is our policy:

• You may cancel free of charge up to 4 weeks before the start of the course. After this date you can only cancel if you have a GSLS PhD candidate to replace you in the course. Send the name and contact information of your replacement to pcc@uu.nl, at least 2 working days before the start of the course;
• We expect that you actively attend the full course, but at least 80%. It is mandatory to attend the first session. If you are absent the first session you cannot follow the remaining of the course;
• Not meeting the above requirements means you will be charged a no-show fee (€ 50). We will send the invoice after the course has ended. We are unable to make any exceptions, unless you have a valid reason (i.e., illness or death in the family 1^st/2^nd degree or partner). Your supervisor has to send an e-mail to pcc@uu.nl indicating the reason.

Unfortunately we don’t offer this course for participants not part of the GSLS. Our courses tend to be fully booked by GSLS PhD candidates.