The Concordat to Support Research Integrity is the UK’s non-statutory, sector-wide framework for research conduct, first published in 2012 and refreshed on 4 April 2025. Signatory universities, institutes, and funders commit to five duties — rigour, ethical compliance, an integrity culture, fair misconduct handling, and continuous improvement — verified through an annual public self-assessment statement. Organisations had until 1 April 2026 to align fully with the refreshed edition, a deadline that has now passed.
The Concordat to Support Research Integrity is a voluntary sector agreement, hosted since late 2025 by the UK Committee on Research Integrity (UKCORI), that sets out shared principles and responsibilities for maintaining rigour and honesty across UK research.
- What Is the Concordat to Support Research Integrity?
- What Are the Five Commitments and Five Principles?
- How Does the Annual Self-Assessment and Public Statement Work?
- What Changed in the 2025 Refresh, and Has the April 2026 Deadline Passed?
- Common Questions About the Concordat
- Implications and Outlook for Signatory Institutions
What Is the Concordat to Support Research Integrity?
The Concordat to Support Research Integrity is a pan-disciplinary, UK-wide reference document setting out five commitments for researchers, research-supporting staff, research organisations, and funders. It carries no statutory or regulatory force; adherence is instead enforced contractually, through individual employment or enrolment terms and through funder grant conditions, according to the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO).
The document was first developed in 2012 by a coalition of national funding bodies and university mission groups. It covers every UK research sector and discipline, from arts and humanities to biomedicine, and does not replace discipline-specific ethics guidance — it supplies the overarching principles that sit above it.
What Are the Five Commitments and Five Principles?
The Concordat’s five commitments define what signatories must do; a nested set of five principles, embedded within Commitment 1, define the standard those actions must meet. Together they form the structure every annual self-assessment is measured against.
- Maintain the highest standards of research integrity, underpinned by five principles: honesty, rigour, transparency and open communication, care and respect, and accountability.
- Ensure research is conducted according to appropriate ethical, legal, and professional frameworks, obligations, and standards — including when working internationally.
- Embed a culture of research integrity, built on good governance, best practice, and support for researcher development.
- Use transparent, timely, robust, and fair processes to deal with allegations of research misconduct, including questionable research practices (QRPs) that fall short of intentional misconduct.
- Strengthen the integrity of research and review progress regularly and openly, including collaboration with other bodies to improve implementation.
UKCORI distinguishes research misconduct — deliberate breaches of Commitment 1’s principles occurring at any stage from ideation to publication — from questionable research practices, defined as minor infractions such as avoidable errors that occur without clear intent to deceive. Authorship disputes over who qualifies for credit on a publication are a recurring category of alleged questionable practice raised under Commitment 4; institutions drafting Concordat-aligned policy increasingly cross-reference their authorship criteria and dispute-resolution guidance when doing so.
How Does the Annual Self-Assessment and Public Statement Work?
Signatory organisations must publish an annual research integrity statement on their own website, publicly demonstrating how they implemented the five commitments over the preceding year. This is the Concordat’s principal accountability mechanism, since the document itself carries no statutory force.
The Research Integrity Concordat Signatories (RICS) Group — the strategic steering body for the Concordat, whose members include UK Research and Innovation, Universities UK, Wellcome Trust, Cancer Research UK, and the Scottish Funding Council — provides a standard annual-statement template, produced on its behalf by UKRIO. Use of the template is not mandatory but is encouraged, because consistent formatting lets the sector track trends in policy and practice nationally.
An effective self-assessment and the statement built from it should typically:
- Declare practical measures taken against each of the five commitments, not just Commitment 1.
- Name a senior role holder accountable for research integrity oversight, plus a first point of contact for concerns.
- Confirm a confidential reporting mechanism exists for questionable research practices and misconduct allegations.
- Reflect honestly on gaps and areas for improvement, rather than presenting only successes.
- Function as an “ask-once” assurance document that satisfies multiple funders’ terms and conditions simultaneously, reducing duplicate reporting burden.
- Be approved through institutional governance channels and published alongside prior years’ statements for year-on-year comparability.
Because research funders have no external body overseeing their own compliance, they meet their Concordat obligations solely by self-reporting through the same public annual-statement mechanism as universities and institutes — a gap worth flagging to funder-facing offices completing their own self-assessments. Research administration teams coordinating grant compliance are typically best placed to own this reconciliation, since annual statements double as evidence against multiple funders’ terms and conditions.
What Changed in the 2025 Refresh, and Has the April 2026 Deadline Passed?
The Concordat has been revised twice since 2012. The refreshed 2025 edition was published on 4 April 2025 following a sector-wide review and consultation led by the RICS Group, and organisations were given until 1 April 2026 to align with its new expectations — a deadline that, as of this article’s publication, has now passed.
| Edition | Published | Key driver | What changed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 2012 | Sector-led initiative by funding bodies and university mission groups | Established the first UK-wide framework and the five commitments |
| 2019 revision | 25 October 2019 | House of Commons Science and Technology Committee report on research integrity, July 2018 | Strengthened misconduct-handling and transparency expectations |
| 2025 refresh | 4 April 2025 | RICS Group sector consultation, 2024–2025 | Reaffirmed the five-commitment structure; updated annual-statement expectations; transferred secretariat to UKCORI |
The structural core is unchanged — the five commitments and five principles carry over intact from 2019 to 2025 — but the governance around the Concordat has moved. Secretariat support transitioned from Universities UK to UKCORI, and the RICS Group’s terms of reference were formally approved in November 2025. Institutions still working from 2019-edition policy wording should treat mid-2026 as the point to confirm their annual statement and internal policies now reference the 2025 text, not the superseded one.
Common Questions About the Concordat
What is the Concordat to Support Research Integrity?
It is the UK’s national, non-statutory framework for research conduct, first published in 2012 and refreshed in 2025. It sets five commitments for researchers, institutions, and funders, verified through annual public self-assessment statements rather than external audit or regulation.
What are the five commitments required of signatories?
Signatories commit to upholding rigour and honesty, following ethical and legal frameworks, embedding an integrity culture, running fair misconduct processes, and reviewing progress openly. These five commitments are underpinned by five principles: honesty, rigour, transparency, care and respect, and accountability.
What does the Concordat ask universities to do about reporting misconduct?
Employers must publish accessible misconduct and questionable-practice policies that include a confidential reporting route through a named point of contact. They must also run fair, timely, documented investigations with appeals processes, and protect anyone who raises concerns from victimisation.
Is the Concordat legally binding?
No. The Concordat is not statutory or regulatory guidance. It becomes binding only indirectly, through individual employment or enrolment terms and through funders’ grant conditions — which is why uptake still varies across funders and disciplines.
Implications and Outlook for Signatory Institutions
With the April 2026 transition window closed, research offices, integrity officers, and institutional leaders now carry a live compliance gap if their published annual statement, policies, or website text still cite the superseded 2019 wording. Because the RICS Group explicitly retained the five-commitment structure, most institutions will not need to rebuild policy frameworks from scratch — the practical work is auditing existing wording against the 2025 text, confirming named accountable roles are current, and republishing the annual statement under the updated template.
Institutions maintaining structured terminology for related governance concepts may find it useful to cross-check definitions against CASRAI’s open research-integrity dictionary when updating internal policy language. Expect the RICS Group and UKCORI to publish further implementation guidance as the first full reporting cycle under the 2025 Concordat completes; institutions that have not yet reconciled their statements should treat that as an immediate priority, not a future task.
