Research integrity is the field that holds together everything else in this cluster: human subjects protection, animal research oversight, biosafety, conflict-of-interest management, clinical trial compliance, and misconduct handling all sit underneath it as specific applications of a shared set of expectations. This guide is the orientation point — what research integrity actually means, how it differs from the adjacent concepts of research ethics and research compliance, the core FFP misconduct framework, Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training, and how a misconduct allegation actually gets investigated once one is raised.
What “research integrity” actually covers
Research integrity is the umbrella construct under which specific responsible-conduct expectations sit: accurate reporting, faithful representation of data, fair attribution, declaration of conflicts, humane treatment of human and animal subjects, and good stewardship of resources. It is not a single rule or a single office — it is the shared expectation that every part of the research process, from proposing a study through publishing its results, is conducted honestly and reported accurately.
Three closely related terms get used almost interchangeably in casual conversation but mean different things institutionally:
- Research integrity centers on the honesty and rigor of the research process itself — whether data, methods, and reporting are accurate and faithfully represented.
- Research ethics centers on the rights, welfare, and dignity of research subjects — the domain of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) for human subjects and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs) for animal subjects.
- Research compliance centers on regulatory rule-following — the specific federal, funder, and institutional requirements (export control, financial conflict-of-interest disclosure, biosafety registration, and so on) that attach to how research is conducted and funded.
The three overlap constantly in practice — a fabricated data point in an NIH-funded study is simultaneously an integrity failure, an ethical breach toward anyone relying on the result, and, potentially, a compliance violation of the funding terms — but institutions typically route them through different offices and different regulatory bases, which is why keeping the distinction clear matters for anyone navigating this cluster.
The FFP framework: fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism
The most codified part of research integrity is the definition of research misconduct itself. In the United States, the federal definition — used by the HHS Office of Research Integrity (ORI) and codified at 42 CFR Part 93 — is research misconduct: fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results. Honest error and legitimate differences of scientific opinion are explicitly excluded.
CASRAI’s Dictionary defines each component individually, since the distinctions matter for how an allegation gets characterized and investigated:
- Fabrication — making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
- Falsification — manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results, such that the research is not accurately represented in the record.
- Plagiarism — appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
Falsification and fabrication are frequently confused with each other — see CASRAI’s side-by-side Falsification vs. Fabrication comparison for the operational distinction between inventing data outright versus altering real data or the record.
Beyond FFP: questionable research practices
FFP is the formal, federally defined misconduct category, but it is deliberately narrow. A wide range of other behavior — image manipulation that falls short of falsification, duplicate submission, undisclosed conflicts of interest, salami-slicing a single dataset into multiple papers, ghost or guest authorship, citation manipulation, and use of paper mills — is not FFP under the federal definition but is still treated as a serious integrity concern by institutions, journals, and funders. Editors and institutions increasingly rely on guidance from bodies such as the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) to handle this broader category, since it falls outside ORI’s narrower jurisdiction but inside what most institutional research-integrity policies actually cover. CASRAI’s guide to paper mills and tortured phrases covers one fast-growing category of this kind.
Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training
RCR training is the preventive counterpart to misconduct investigation: structured instruction, required by NIH and NSF for specified categories of trainees, covering data management, authorship, peer review, conflicts of interest, mentoring responsibilities, and the FFP framework itself, delivered before problems arise rather than after. NIH and NSF differ in exactly which populations must be trained and in format requirements, and institutions are responsible for tracking completion for audit purposes. CASRAI’s guide to RCR training requirements and completion tracking covers the administrative mechanics in full.
How a misconduct allegation actually gets investigated
When a concern is raised, it does not go straight to a finding. Under the ORI-modeled process most US institutional policies are built on, an allegation moves through a sequence: an initial assessment, a formal inquiry to determine whether an investigation is warranted, and, if warranted, a full investigation with a defined evidentiary standard and a right of response for the person accused. A Research Integrity Officer (RIO) typically coordinates the process at the institutional level, and findings of misconduct involving PHS-funded research are ultimately reportable to ORI. This is a substantial process with real timelines, confidentiality obligations, and whistleblower protections built in — CASRAI’s dedicated guide, How a Research Misconduct Investigation Works, walks through each stage in detail, including the 2024 revision to 42 CFR Part 93.
International frameworks and consensus statements
Outside the US federal FFP definition, several international consensus statements articulate research integrity principles without the force of regulation, and institutions and funders worldwide reference them when building their own policy: the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity (2010), the first international attempt at a consensus statement of principles and responsibilities; the Hong Kong Principles (2020), focused specifically on how researchers are assessed and rewarded, on the premise that reward structures shape integrity behavior; and the ALLEA European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2023 revision), widely adopted as a reference framework across European funders and institutions. None of these carries the direct regulatory force of 42 CFR Part 93, but each shapes institutional policy language well beyond its country of origin.
Frequently asked questions
Is research integrity the same thing as research ethics?
No. Research integrity concerns the honesty and accuracy of the research process and record; research ethics concerns the rights and welfare of the people or animals involved. A study can be ethically approved by an IRB and still suffer an integrity failure if the resulting data is fabricated, and conversely a study can be conducted with scrupulous data integrity while still raising ethical concerns about subject treatment. The two functions are typically overseen by different institutional bodies.
What is the difference between research misconduct and a questionable research practice?
Research misconduct, under the US federal definition, is limited to fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism (FFP) and requires a specific intent and evidentiary standard. Questionable research practices — things like undisclosed duplicate publication, inappropriate authorship credit, or aggressive data manipulation short of falsification — fall outside the formal FFP definition but are still treated seriously by institutions and journals through separate policy and editorial mechanisms.
Who is responsible for research integrity at a university?
Responsibility is distributed. Individual researchers and their supervisors bear the primary day-to-day responsibility; a designated Research Integrity Officer typically coordinates formal allegation handling at the institutional level; and, for federally funded research, the Office of Research Integrity has oversight authority over PHS-supported work specifically. Journals and publishers maintain a parallel, publication-side integrity function through mechanisms like COPE guidance and retraction processes.
Does RCR training actually prevent misconduct?
RCR training is best understood as risk reduction and norm-setting rather than a guarantee. It exists to make researchers — particularly trainees early in their careers — explicitly aware of the standards they are expected to meet and the mechanisms (data management practices, authorship criteria, conflict disclosure) that make deviations easier to catch. NIH and NSF require it as a condition of funding specific categories of trainees precisely because prevention and early awareness are considered a more effective lever than investigation after the fact.
Where to go next
This page is the orientation point for the Research Integrity & Compliance cluster. From here, the natural next steps are the specific FFP component definitions (fabrication, falsification, plagiarism), the full misconduct investigation process guide, and RCR training requirements. Readers working through the compliance side specifically — human subjects protection, animal research oversight, biosafety, conflict of interest, or clinical trial compliance — will find each of those covered as its own sub-area within the same cluster.
