Code of Ethics for Researchers of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Code of Ethics for Scientific Research of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Motto: “Pursuing knowledge, is, indeed, an all-encompassing endeavour, in fact, an exceedingly active life. If talking about ‘science’, you are speaking, at the same time, about pains, patience, tenacity, perseverance, sacrifice, honesty – all these are components not only of an active life, but of the moral life as well.”
(T. G. Masaryk in Karel Čapek: Talks with T. G. Masaryk)

I.
General Principles

A CAS employee^[1]:

1. abides in his/her work by the basic moral principles and values of the academic environment, which primarily include:
   1. freedom of research;
   2. fairness;
   3. equal opportunities;
   4. responsibility;
   5. honesty;
   6. conscientiousness;
   7. trust;
   8. respect for others.
2. does not allow a conflict of interest arising from his/her position at a CAS institute and related activities and his/her private interest; he/she also honours the Academy of Sciences by not jeopardising its activities through his/her other activities;
3. conducts his/her research with full working and personal commitment proportionate to the size of his/her working hours. The total of his/her contractual working hours will usually not exceed 1.5 times of standard working hours;
4. requires his/her colleagues to act in accordance with these principles;
5. does not defend or conceal conduct that contravenes the principles set forth in this Code, not even on the basis of necessary obedience and loyalty;
6. considers science and research an integral part of culture and the source of innovation and defends them against being questioned;
7. stands against the unethical and inappropriate use of scientific knowledge;
8. expands and intensifies his/her knowledge and strives to improve his/her professional competencies;
9. maintains a critical attitude toward his/her own scientific findings and results as well as to results of colleagues and is open to discussion and factual argument;
10. defends the freedom of scientific thought, expression, exchanges of opinion and information;
11. refuses to use unscientific approaches and politically or socially prejudiced (e.g. racist, religious, nationalistic) perspectives in science;
12. observes the principles of neutrality and independence of ideological and political pressures and of the interests of pressure groups;
13. recognises and disseminates the principles of reliable, trustworthy scientific practice in the scientific community and refuses all scientific dishonesty and infringement of the principles specified in this Code;
14. does not hesitate to report to the appropriate authorities breaches of ethics in scientific research work, if he/she is aware of them, where in the event that he/she has exhausted all available options for resolving a matter through the Academy of Sciences’ internal mechanisms under Chapter VI, he/she may publicly state information about such transgressions without necessarily breaching his/her loyalty to the Czech Academy of Sciences;
15. does not waste material resources and energy, strives to reduce the climate and environmental footprint of his/her activities;
16. strives to strengthen the institutional resilience of the Czech Academy of Sciences and does not consciously create space for unwanted influence of a foreign power.

^{[1] In this Code, CAS is understood to mean the Czech Academy of Sciences and its institutes. Terms referring to persons or positions in this Code are used in a gender-neutral sense.}

II.
Principles of Scientific Work

A CAS employee:

1. focuses his/her research on expanding the frontiers of scientific knowledge to the benefit of society;
2. carries out research in such a way that society, the environment and cultural values are not threatened;
3. performs animal experiments with respect for living creatures;
4. when obtaining, selecting and assessing data, observes the general principles (Article I), while taking into account the specificity of his/her discipline. Conduct incompatible with the principles of ethical behaviour in science includes, but is not limited to: fraud, forgery, plagiarism, falsification, misrepresentation, deliberate deception and theft, at any stage of the scientific research process from conception to publication of the results;
5. is responsible for the precision and objectivity of the research he/she does or directly coordinates and recognises the limits of research methods used;
6. when publishing findings and results on a certain problem, is responsible for their completeness and verifiability and interprets them without distortion;
7. after publication, preserves primary data and documentation of all substantial results for the usual period of time in the relevant discipline, unless other obligations or regulations preclude this;
8. is responsible for the purposeful and efficient use of research funds and does not duplicate research previously carried out elsewhere, unless it is needed for the verification, supplementation or comparison of the results obtained;
9. communicates the results of his/her research in a manner not subject to confidentiality to the professional community and considerately familiarises the general public with them, with regard to the current state of scientific knowledge;
10. does not disparage scientific procedures and respects other scientific opinion as well as the plurality of scientific disciplines;
11. respects intellectual property, does not remove it from the institute where it was created or devalue it in any way.

III.
Principles for Publicising Scientific Knowledge and Results

A CAS employee:

1. should be named as the author or co-author of a scientific paper if contributing in any substantial way to its origin, e.g., to the design of the studies and experiments and their realisation, to analysing, interpreting, working out or modelling the data or drawing up the article, on the condition co-authorship is agreed to; a managerial position at an institute does not automatically confer a right to co-authorship;
2. as an editor or lead author of joint publications, ensures the rights of co-authors (does not change the text without their knowledge, does everything necessary to ensure the joint publication is published without unnecessary delays, notifies authors of partial studies if their text will not be included in a publication, informs co-authors about the modalities of joint publication);
3. puts his/her research in the context of the current state of knowledge about a topic and refers to previously published works with regard to the rules in the relevant field. When citing other authors’ findings and results, he/she makes a clear reference to the relevant source;
4. cites also important works which are contrary to his/her own results and conclusions;
5. publishes errata or another correction, retracts a publication or takes other appropriate steps if he/she later finds any substantial error in his/her published data, or if he/she is alerted to an error;
6. avoids partitioning results and knowledge intentionally to publish them in multiple journals thereby increasing the number of his/her scientific papers;
7. does not intentionally take advantage of ethically dubious publishing platforms;
8. publishes with the aim to pass on his/her results and knowledge to the professional public, not only for the purpose of demonstrating works as scientific output;
9. an institute affiliation can only be used for publications that were at least partially the result of scientific work at the relevant institute (in other cases an institute can be indicated as the “present address” of an author who is currently employed at the institute, but obtained his/her results at another institution);
10. does not obtain citations of his/her own works through a calculated association of multiple authors concerning mutual calculated citations of each other’s works.

IV.
Principles Regulating Relations with Colleagues

A CAS employee:

1. admits research colleagues after objectively evaluating their intellectual, ethical and personal characteristics;
2. if he/she leads a research team, ensures fairness and openness in mutual communication, avoids unreasonably autocratic management methods and prevents dishonest behaviour caused, for example, by performance requirements and professional competitiveness;
3. assesses colleagues according to the results achieved and treats them equitably, not requiring from them work which is not their responsibility, and does not place requirements on them that are unreasonable given their abilities and capabilities;
4. conveys knowledge, skills and principles of good conduct in science by word and personal example to his/her and colleagues;
5. does not discriminate against other persons, in particular does not have prejudices based on race, ethnic origin, nationality, language, ideology, religion, belief, world view, age, gender, sexual orientation, physical handicap, social origin or wealth;
6. does not engage in or support acts that harm the psychological or physical integrity of other persons (in particular bullying, sexual harassment or other forms of aggression);
7. does not abuse his/her senior position or professional authority to engage in manipulative behaviour, intimidation or extortion, develops independent, critical thinking and a responsible approach to work and respects the right to free expression of opinions about research;
8. supports the enhancement of qualifications of subordinate researchers and their scientific and publication activities and international contacts and lists them among the authors of a paper if they have made a creative contribution to it;
9. ensures there are consequences for any unethical behaviour by his/her colleagues;
10. supports positive attitudes towards people with specific needs and improving the conditions for their involvement in the academic community.

V.
Principles for Assessment, Evaluation, Opponent and Expert Activities

A CAS employee:

1. performs assessment or other evaluation work assigned personally;
2. protects the intellectual property of the authors of manuscripts, project proposals and reports being assessed; does not use the data contained in assessed materials for any purpose other than the preparation of an expert opinion and does not disclose them to third parties;
3. does not intentionally prolong the assessment of an evaluated work so as to achieve personal advantage or for the benefit of a third party;
4. refuses to prepare an expert opinion, the conclusions of which could be influenced by his/her personal interest, or clearly reveals this fact in advance; avoids any other potential conflicts of interest;
5. prepares expert opinions responsibly and only from his/her area of expertise, resisting any potential external pressures which could influence this opinion;
6. observes objective criteria in evaluating and opponent procedures, adheres to the contractor’s rules and requires the same adherence from the other participants in the procedure.

VI.
Procedure for Dealing with Breaches of Principles of Proper Conduct in Scientific Research Work

In the event of a breach of this Code’s principles, the following procedure will be followed:

1. the matter is discussed at the CAS institute at the level of its organisational structure (ad hoc committees (commissions) can be established at the relevant level to deal with them) or in the CAS Scientific Integrity Committee;
2. a hearing is conducted in cooperation with all the parties involved, where care is taken to ensure highest possible privacy;
3. the conclusions of the solution must be communicated to all parties involved and must contain a proposal for remedial action if a breach of scientific ethics is found. Article 65 of the CAS Statutes or the Labour Code may be applied in reasoned cases.

Notes:

It is recommended that CAS institutes supplement the Code of Ethics with relevant disciplinary specifics.

When preparing the Code of Ethics for Scientific Research of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the following materials were used:

• Research Ethics Framework, resolution of the Government of the Czech Republic No. 1005 of 17 August 2005;
• European Charter for Researchers, 2005/251/EC, Official Journal of the European Union of 22 March 2005;
• Good Manners in Science; A Set of Principles and Guidelines, Polish Academy of Sciences, Committee for Ethics in Science, Third (amended) edition, Warsaw 2001;
• Rules of Good Scientific Practice, adopted by the Senate of the Max Planck Society on 24 November 2000;
• Memorandum on Scientific Integrity, All European Academies, Amsterdam 2003 (On standards for Scientific Research and a National Committee for Scientific Integrity, KNAW, NWO, VSNU, 2001);
• Singapore Statement on Research Integrity, 2010;
• The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, 2011;
• Montreal Statement on Research Integrity in Cross-Boundary Research Collaborations, 2013;
• The Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA), 2022
• Guidance on Authorship in Scientific Publications for Researchers of the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry of the CAS;
• Codes of Ethics of Charles University, GA CR and the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the CAS.

VII.
Effect

This Code of Ethics comes into effect on 16 April 2024