The Research Ethics Policy for the Effective Utilization of Research Equipment

Introduction

Research ethics is an ethical principle that must be upheld in scientists’ research work. If falls under social ethics (respect, honesty, responsibility, etc.), which is applied to the general people but must also be specifically applied to the research work conducted by scientists (Carr, 2016; Snoek, 2016). It refers to scientists’ responsible conduct of research (RCR). Therefore, all scientists must take note of it and must strive to uphold it while conducting research work. Owing to the onset of the fourth industrial revolution and its spread across the world thanks to industrialization and informatization, however, the instances of scientific misconduct have increased, and the upholding of research ethics has degenerated (Greenwood, 2016). As a result, the veracity of and responsibility for researches have been compromised, which is an issue being discussed all over the world (Crissinger, 2017). Misconduct and fraud in the research process have become big problems, including falsification, fabrication, plagiarism, etc. When a research paper is published, the author must present his or her credentials (Hartmann, Valey, & Fuqua, 2017). Also, credit must be given to the authors in accordance with their respective research contributions (Shook & Giordano, 2015; Tamariz et al., 2015). Honorary authorship, in which a distinguished scientist was not really involved in the research but was cited as among its authors to lend credence to the research, must be avoided (Hyytinen & Löfström, 2017). There is a constant need to understand and actively deal with the many ethical problems that arise from scientific development. Technoethics is the basic moral concept needed to address new scientific issues and problems in the system of knowledge and ideology for the science and technology. It also means a sense of responsibility among scientists and technology developers for future problems or controversies arising from the development of current technology. Science and technology ethics are created to maintain complementary relationships in common areas, and it is the ethical concept that scientists and engineers should follow. This paper focuses on discussing about technoethics and research equipment. In this paper, research-related scientific misconduct is discussed, and a research ethics policy proposal is presented. In particular, scientific misconduct in relation to the utilization of research equipment causes government R&D budget loss, R&D production decrease, and research cooperation degeneration. Creative research ideas and excellent research results obtained through the use of research equipment are currently being presented all over the world. Indeed, research equipment are very important tools and means for the advancement of science and technology. Accordingly, the construction and introduction of research equipment have steadily increased, but problems related to their misuse in the interest of expediency occur, particularly in their construction, introduction, utilization, and management. As such, a guideline and a policy for the effective utilization and management of research equipment are needed. When research equipment is purchased through the government R&D budget in South Korea, the national research facilities and equipment standard guideline (2010) of the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology are applied. This guideline was signed into law in 2016 through Article 28, section 4 of the basic law and Article 42, section 2 of the Enforcement Ordinance for Science and Technology. The institutional support of the government and ethics compliance awareness are essential for scientific misconduct prevention and for the efficiency enhancement of research equipment utilization. Despite the existence of the excellent standard and guideline, however, the aforementioned problems still occur, but this does not necessarily mean that scientists do not understand the said standard and guideline. It may mean that the scientists are not aware of the existence of such guideline or of its provisions, which poses problems in their operation and utilization of research equipment. In this paper, the current problem of scientific misconduct in relation to research equipment utilization is discussed. Scientific misconduct in relation to research equipment utilization includes the purchase of unnecessary research equipment, the purchase of duplicate/similar research equipment, carelessness in the systematic operation and management of research equipment, neglect of unused research equipment, and insufficient mutual utilization of research equipment. In this study, a survey was carried out targeting scientists utilizing research equipment for the analysis of their awareness and recognition of scientific misconduct in relation to research equipment utilization. For this survey, the non-probability sampling method was utilized, and the respondents consisted of 60 research equipment scientists. Also, a solution and guideline for scientific misconduct prevention was proposed through a research ethics policy proposal for the effective utilization of research equipment.