CASRAI Dictionary

Tag: UKCORI

  • Research Integrity Statements: How They Compare

    A research integrity statement is the annual public report a UK university publishes under the Concordat to Support Research Integrity, covering its governance, training and misconduct-handling activity. Depth of disclosure varies sharply: some institutions publish only a principles statement, while others — including the Open University in its 2026 statement — publish allegation tallies and investigation outcomes.

    A research integrity statement is defined by Universities UK’s Concordat as a governing-body-approved annual account of the steps an institution has taken to maintain rigour, transparency, honesty, and accountability in research, alongside a summary of misconduct allegations handled during the reporting year.

    What does the Concordat require in an annual statement?

    The Concordat to Support Research Integrity, coordinated by Universities UK and now overseen by the UK Committee on Research Integrity (UKCORI), requires every signatory to publish an annual statement approved by its governing body. Signatories are transitioning to the refreshed 2025 edition of the Concordat, with full alignment expected by April 2026; until that point, institutions continue reporting against the 2019 edition’s requirements.

    Under both editions, the statement must be publicly accessible on the institution’s website and must include an anonymised account of allegations of research misconduct received and how they were resolved. UKRIO’s self-assessment tooling encourages — but does not mandate — a common template, which is precisely why disclosure quality diverges so widely between institutions.

    • Approval by the university’s governing body (council, senate or board)
    • A narrative on training, culture and support for researchers
    • An anonymised summary of misconduct allegations and outcomes
    • Public web publication, with a copy sent to the Concordat secretariat

    Worked example: the Open University’s 2026 statement

    The Open University’s Research Integrity Statement 2026, approved by OU Council on 3 March 2026, covers the reporting period 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025. It names Professor Mark Brandon, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, as senior lead, with Helen Castley, Senior Manager for Research Governance, as first point of contact.

    The statement discloses three misconduct allegations during the period, none of which proceeded to a formal investigation and none of which were upheld. It also reports the launch of an online research integrity module for postgraduate researchers in autumn 2024, sector-facing open research training, and the university’s signing of the Concordat for Environmental Sustainability of Research. Oversight sits with the Human Research Ethics Committee, an Ethical Research Review Committee, and a newly established Animal Ethics Committee.

    This is a useful baseline because it demonstrates the minimum viable version of Concordat compliance: named accountable officer, dated approval, allegation count, and training update — without case-level detail.

    How does disclosure depth compare across the sector?

    Compliance with the Concordat’s letter does not guarantee comparable transparency. Some institutions publish case-by-case misconduct tables; others confine the public statement to principles and point auditors to an internal report instead.

    Institution Approving body Misconduct data disclosed Training disclosure
    Open University OU Council Allegation count (3), zero formal investigations, none upheld New PGR online integrity module, autumn 2024
    University of Manchester Research Compliance Committee, reporting to Planning and Resources Committee Case-level table (e.g. 7 cases logged in the 2022-23 statement, with faculty, nature and outcome) Mandatory 5-hour course for PGRs, 1-hour course for staff, repeated every 3 years
    University of Cambridge General Board of the Faculties Not published on the public statement page; misconduct reporting sits in a separate Research Integrity Report to Council References Guidelines on Good Research Practice; no published hours or frequency

    The gap is stark: Manchester’s public statement lists individually anonymised case outcomes and quantifies training hours and frequency, while Cambridge’s equivalent page sets out principles and policy links without allegation figures in the same document. The Open University sits between the two, disclosing an allegation count and outcome but not case-level detail.

    For institutions and researchers assessing an organisation’s research misconduct policy or the maturity of its research integrity office, this variance matters more than whether a statement exists at all — a published statement with no allegation data offers limited assurance compared with one that itemises outcomes.

    What should a fully compliant statement include?

    Institutions revising their statement ahead of the April 2026 alignment deadline for the refreshed Concordat should treat the following as a minimum disclosure standard, based on the strongest examples in the sector.

    • Governing-body approval date and named senior accountable officer
    • Defined reporting period (financial or academic year)
    • Anonymised allegation count, broken down by outcome (informal resolution, formal investigation, upheld/not upheld)
    • Description of research integrity training provision, ideally with hours, frequency and audience (staff vs postgraduate researchers)
    • Governance structure — named committee(s) and their reporting line to council or board level
    • Reference to the institution’s research misconduct policy and how allegations are triaged
    • A statement on the consequences of research misconduct applied where allegations are upheld

    Frequently asked questions

    What is an example of a research integrity statement?

    The Open University’s 2026 statement is a working example: approved by OU Council on 3 March 2026, it reports three misconduct allegations, zero formal investigations, and new postgraduate training, alongside named senior accountability under the Concordat.

    What are the five principles of research integrity?

    Universities UK’s Concordat framework, as adapted across UK institutions, defines five core principles: honesty, rigour, transparency and open communication, care and respect for participants and colleagues, and accountability for one’s own research conduct.

    Does a research integrity statement have to report misconduct numbers?

    Yes — the Concordat requires an anonymised summary of misconduct allegations and outcomes in every annual statement. However, no single template is mandatory, so the level of detail — from a bare count to full case tables — varies significantly between institutions.

    Who approves a university’s annual research integrity statement?

    The Concordat requires approval by the institution’s governing body — typically a council, senate or board of governors — often via a delegated committee such as a research compliance or research integrity committee, before public web publication.

    What this means for research administrators

    As institutions align with the refreshed 2025 Concordat ahead of the April 2026 deadline, the sector faces a choice between minimum-viable compliance and genuine transparency. A statement that discloses only principles, with allegation data held back in an internal report, technically satisfies the Concordat’s publication requirement but tells funders, partners and prospective researchers little about how misconduct is actually handled.

    Research administrators drafting or revising a statement should benchmark against Manchester’s case-level disclosure rather than the sector floor, and should treat training hours, frequency and audience as reportable metrics, not narrative colour. Institutions publishing thin statements risk being read — correctly — as less mature on research governance than peers with equivalent misconduct rates but fuller disclosure.

    For research administration teams building out governance documentation more broadly, CASRAI’s research administration resources and research terminology dictionary provide further grounding in the frameworks referenced above.

  • Concordat to Support Research Integrity: A Signatory Self-Assessment Guide for 2026

    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?

    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.

    1. Maintain the highest standards of research integrity, underpinned by five principles: honesty, rigour, transparency and open communication, care and respect, and accountability.
    2. Ensure research is conducted according to appropriate ethical, legal, and professional frameworks, obligations, and standards — including when working internationally.
    3. Embed a culture of research integrity, built on good governance, best practice, and support for researcher development.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.