Symposium on Research Responsibility and Undergraduates

Council On Undergraduate Research, Gaithersburg DC

Investigators

Abstract

The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) plans a Symposium on Research Responsibility to be held in conjunction with its 9th National Conference in Connecticut College, New London, CT, June 19-22, 2002. CUR will invite speakers with relevant expertise from U.S. federal agencies and academia to address an audience of approximately 600 faculty and administrators. Deans, department chairs, new faculty members, directors of research, provosts, and directors of undergraduate research programs attend CUR meetings. While CUR expects an audience from all types of academic institutions, CUR's main constituency is primarily undergraduate institutions that encourage research by faculty members mentoring undergraduates, including minority-serving comprehensive universities, women's colleges, and historically black colleges and universities. Unlike research universities, many members of the target audience have not thought in great detail about the formal issues surrounding research ethics before. The symposium will provide a broad introduction to federal concerns and regulations as well as opportunities for in-depth discussion of case studies on campuses. There are two foci: (1) ethical issues of special importance to faculty doing research with undergraduates; and (2) how to instill ethical/responsible research behavior in undergraduates. Topics will include those identified as important by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ORI has agreed to co-sponsor the meeting. CUR seeks funding from NIH to support travel and meeting costs of faculty members from minority- serving institutions and for advertising the meeting through organizations that specifically serve under-represented groups in academia. An important goal is to develop materials resulting from discussions at the symposium that will be disseminated via a permanently maintained CUR website on research ethics. This website will be a resource for training programs at primarily undergraduate institutions.