Bettina Greenwell, communications officer at IIASA, talks to Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay, Deputy CEO: Research and Innovation Support and Advancement (RISA), National Research Foundation (NRF), and IIASA council member for South Africa, about the NRF\u2019s statement on ethical research and scholarly publishing practices. The statement was jointly issued in August 2019 with South African partners within the National System of Innovation (NSI) in South Africa.<\/p>\n
Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay, Deputy CEO: Research and Innovation Support and Advancement (RISA), National Research Foundation (NRF), and IIASA council member for South Africa<\/p><\/div>\n
What is ethics in research and why is it so important?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Research is a quest for truth. The research must be well conceptualized with a clear research question(s) which can lead to new knowledge. Good ethics and integrity dictate that the truth must be presented in its absolute form, and the findings need to be appropriately interpreted and should be reproducible.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
South Africa was awarded the right to host the 7th<\/sup> World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI) in 2021 in Cape Town \u2013 the first time it will be hosted on an African continent. <\/strong>Why is this statement important for the science community in South Africa?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Firstly, it is a privilege to host this conference and South Africa feels very honored. The statement on ethical research and scholarly publishing practices<\/a> is an important contribution to this conference. We have noticed that South African academics and researchers, especially new and emerging researchers, are under a lot of pressure to publish their work for a variety of reasons. In some instances, ethical principles have been violated. This included the dissemination of research through predatory journals.\u00a0 However, this was not unique to South Africa only as other countries also faced similar challenges.\u00a0 The NRF as a science granting foundation felt compelled to respond to this challenge. The NRF sees itself as a custodian and guardian of research ethics and integrity. Through our peer-review processes, we ensure that research proposals for funding have been robustly interrogated, and the highest ethical principles upheld. As a consequence the NRF developed and issued a joint statement on ethical research and scholarly publications in collaboration with the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI), the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), the Council on Higher Education (CHE), the Academy of science of South Africa (ASSAf), Universities South African (USAf) and the NRF. In addition, the NRF has previously issued a statement on predatory publishing<\/a>.<\/p>\n
We see the South Africa IIASA membership as a partnership, and many benefits have accrued through this partnership over the past decade. An example is the Southern African Young Scientists Summer Program (SA-YSSP), which was inspired by the success of the IIASA YSSP<\/a>. This program ran from 2012 to 2015, and trained the next generation of young scientists.<\/p>\n
Another example is the Southern African Systems Analysis Centre<\/a> (SASAC) initiative, which focused on expanding systems analysis expertise in Southern Africa. Both initiatives were endorsed by the South African Department of Science and Innovation.<\/p>\n
About NRF and Dorsamy (Gansen) Pillay<\/strong><\/p>\n
Notes:
\n<\/em>Please <\/em>click on the link<\/em><\/a> to read the statement on ethical research and scholarly publishing.
\n<\/em>More information on <\/em>IIASA and South<\/em> Africa<\/em><\/a>.
\n<\/em>This article gives the views of the authors, and not the position of the Nexus blog, nor of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"