Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A Horizon Europe consortium's data management plan and ethics self-assessment cite the ALLEA Code's reliability and honesty principles directly, and its grant agreement lists the Code as a binding reference document.
- Is an instance
A national funder revises its own research-integrity policy to explicitly align with the 2023 revised edition of the ALLEA Code after the edition's publication, rather than maintaining a divergent local standard.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A single university's internally drafted 'Responsible Conduct of Research' policy that was written independently of ALLEA and does not reference or incorporate the Code is not itself an instance of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, even if it covers similar principles.
- Not an instance
ENRIO's own network charter or meeting outputs are not the Code — ENRIO is the organisation of national offices, not the ALLEA-authored text.
Editorial commentary
The European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity is the named reference document published by ALLEA (All European Academies) that defines the principles and practices expected of researchers and institutions across Europe. It is distinct from research integrity as a general concept, from ENRIO (a network of national research integrity offices, not a text), and from research misconduct (a category of behaviour the Code helps define, not the Code itself). First published in 2011 jointly with the European Science Foundation, it was revised in 2017 and again in a 2023 edition that expanded its treatment of research culture, equity/diversity/inclusion, GDPR-driven data management practice, and Open Science.
The four principles
The Code organises good research practice around four principles:
- Reliability in ensuring the quality of research, reflected in the design, methodology, analysis, and use of resources.
- Honesty in developing, undertaking, reviewing, reporting, and communicating research in a transparent, fair, full, and unbiased way.
- Respect for colleagues, research participants, society, ecosystems, cultural heritage, and the environment.
- Accountability for the research from idea to publication, for its management and organisation, for training, supervision, and mentoring, and for its wider societal impact.
These four principles, rather than a single rule like the US federal fabrication/falsification/plagiarism (FFP) standard, are the frame the Code uses to derive its detailed good-practice provisions and its list of what constitutes a violation — which is why the Code’s scope of ‘misconduct’ is broader than the narrower US regulatory definition discussed under research misconduct, and closer to the broader umbrella covered by ethical violation.
Role as a Horizon Europe compliance requirement
The European Commission recognises the Code as the primary standard for research integrity across EU-funded research. Concretely, this is not just an endorsement: the Code is referenced in the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement, and beneficiaries are contractually required to conduct their research in accordance with it. In practice this means:
- A Horizon Europe consortium’s ethics self-assessment and research integrity procedures are expected to align with the Code’s principles, not just with each partner institution’s own local policy.
- An allegation of a Code violation on a Horizon Europe-funded project can trigger the grant agreement’s research-integrity clauses, distinct from (though often overlapping with) an institution’s own misconduct investigation process.
- National funders and universities across Europe have increasingly adopted or aligned their own codes to the ALLEA Code, so it functions as a de facto European baseline even outside EU-funded projects specifically.
How it relates to ENRIO and national codes
ENRIO, the European Network of Research Integrity Offices, is an organisation — a forum of national research integrity bodies that share practice and, in some countries, help implement or reference the Code, including through mechanisms such as its collection of national guidelines. It does not itself author the Code; ALLEA does. Many ENRIO member countries maintain their own national research integrity codes (for example, produced by a national academy, funder, or dedicated integrity office), and these are typically written to be consistent with, or explicitly derived from, the ALLEA Code’s four principles rather than standing as competing frameworks. When a national code and the ALLEA Code diverge on a specific procedural point, EU-funded projects generally default to the requirements of the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement, which points to the ALLEA Code.
What counts as an instance
A document or policy is properly described as “the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity” only when it is the specific ALLEA-published text (2011, 2017, or 2023 edition) or an official translation of it — not any institution’s own, independently drafted research-integrity policy, even one covering similar ground. A university’s local “Code of Research Conduct” that cites and incorporates the ALLEA Code by reference is an instance of a compliant institutional policy, not itself the European Code.
Related terms
- Research Integrity — the general concept the Code operationalises.
- Research Misconduct — the narrower category of violation the Code helps define, alongside broader “questionable research practices.”
- Ethical Violation — the broader umbrella category that the Code’s misconduct/violation taxonomy sits within.
- ENRIO — the network of national research integrity offices, distinct from the Code as a document.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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