Research Integrity

Research Integrity

The National Forum on Research Integrity (NRIF) has its origins in the publication of the National Policy Statement on Ensuring Research Integrity in Ireland. It was established in June 2015 with representation from research performing organisations, research funders and other stakeholders to ensure continual development and adoption of good practice towards a strengthened approach to ensuring research integrity in Ireland. The NRIF is coordinated by the Technological Higher Education Association and the Irish Universities Association.

Key responsibilities of the NRIF:

• Supporting the implementation of research integrity policies and processes in a harmonised manner across the research performing and research funding organisations;

• Supporting the development of appropriate research integrity quality assurance mechanisms;

• Developing appropriate research integrity guidance documents and position papers;

• Ensuring continuity of online research integrity training provision for staff and students in the research performing organisations and encouraging the development and roll-out of in-person research integrity training programmes;

• Monitoring international developments and policy and engaging in international forums in the area of research integrity, and making recommendations as appropriate to policy development, review and implementation in Ireland;

• Communicating the importance of research integrity to the Irish research community and to the general public;

• Publishing annual statistics on the number and types of research misconduct that have been dealt with through formal mechanisms within the state-funded research performing organisations;

In 2022, the NRIF was re-structured into two elements:

1. A focused Steering Group where strategic issues related to Conduct of Research and Research Integrity are discussed among key senior stakeholders. The group is currently chaired by Professor Anita Maguire from University College Cork.
2. A broad Community of Practice (CoP) for sharing information and good practice on training, policies and operational matters between a large group of stakeholder organisations, including all state-funded research performing organisations, national research funders and other relevant national stakeholder organisations. The Chair and Deputy Chair roles are rotated annually from within the membership.

The NRIF also facilitates an annual meeting of the Research Integrity Officers from the research performing organisations.

More information on the work of the NRIF can be found here.