Breaches of the code and research misconduct
What is a breach?
A breach of the Macquarie University Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (Macquarie Research Code) is an unintentional failure to comply with principles or specific provisions of the University’s policies governing the conduct of research by our researchers. A breach does not include honest differences in the interpretation of data.
What is research misconduct?
Research misconduct constitutes a failure to comply with the Macquarie Research Code, the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018) (Australian Code) or specific provisions of the University’s policies or codes governing the conduct of research by our researchers. Research misconduct includes intent and deliberation; recklessness; negligence; and/or seriously deviating from accepted standards within the research and scholarly community for proposing, conducting or reporting research. Research misconduct may have serious consequences.
Repeated or continuing breaches of the Macquarie Research Code may constitute research misconduct. Where there has been previous counselling or specific direction, repeated or continuing breaches do constitute research misconduct.
Examples of research misconduct
Research misconduct includes:
- Fabrication of data or results
- Falsification or misrepresentation of data or results
- Plagiarism of data, results or written outputs
- Redundant or duplicate publication of data, results or written outputs
- Failure to declare or adequately manage risk to the safety of human participants or the wellbeing of animals or the environment
- Misleading ascription of authorship to a publication, including:
- Listing authors without their permission
- Attributing work to people who did not contribute to the publication
- Omitting people who are eligible to be authors
- Failing to appropriately acknowledge the work primarily produced by others.
- Failure to disclose conflicts of interest or cases where a conflict of interest might reasonably be perceived to exist
- Falsification or misrepresentation to obtain funding
- Misuse or misappropriation of funds
- Wilful conduct of research without required ethics approval as required by the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and the Australian Code of Practice for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes (2013)
- Wilful conduct of research that is not compliant with the Gene Technology Act 2000 (Cth), the Gene Technology Regulations 2001 (Cth) and other relevant guidelines issued by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator
- Wilful concealment or facilitation of research misconduct by others.
Report a breach of the Macquarie Research Code or research misconduct at Macquarie University.