2004
Office of Research Integrity

Of the 52,000 postdoctoral fellows (postdocs) at U.S. institutions, more than 50% hold temporary resident status in the U.S. Because the 1990 PHS requirement for Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) education does not extend to foreign national postdocs (who are not eligible for training grants), and a significant percentage of institutions do not provide RCR training beyond this NIH trainee group, it is reasonable to assume that foreign postdocs are not obtaining adequate instruction in this area. The National Academy of Science has called on institutions to begin addressing the needs of this group. At the same time, Swazye and Bird suggest that social and cultural factors be considered in the teaching of research ethics. Interestingly, several highly publicized incidents of scientific misconduct involved foreign nationals. Recognizing that attitudes and behaviors which are culturally based might contribute to such cases, the Japanese government has been sponsoring seminars to educate U.S.-bound trainees on how to navigate U.S. laws on intellectual property, conflicts of interest, data management and authorship.