Frequently Asked Questions

RCR is Responsible Conduct of Research and involves conducting research in an ethical manner and in line with guidelines, requirements, and protocols. The foundation of research integrity, RCR involves excellent communication among collaborators and building an environment that encourages ethical research. See more at Research Integrity and RCR.

RCR training is best practice for all researchers (including students, post-doctoral researchers, faculty members, and technical staff) to be trained in responsible and ethical conduct of research. Sponsors who require RCR training include:

• National Institutes of Health (NIH) – trainees, fellows, participants, and scholars participating in NIH Institutional Research Training Grants, Individual Fellowship Awards, Career Development Awards (Institutional and Individual), Research Education Grants, Dissertation Research Grants, and other grant programs with a training component that requires RCR instruction, per the Funding Opportunity Announcement
• National Science Foundation (NSF) – undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers participating in NSF research projects (also Principal Investigators and other key persons, beginning in July 2023)
• United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) – program directors, faculty, undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and any staff participating in the research project

Great question. Many of these concepts are intertwined, and research projects often involve more than one. More important than classifying potential conflicts is disclosing them, to allow appropriate review. Contact Scott Canner at scanner2@utk.edu with questions.

Outside interests should be disclosed at the start of each academic year.  Any changes or updates to an outside interest should then be disclosed within 30 days of the change.

Disclosure is made via the Outside Interest Disclosure (OID) form in IRIS.  The form is located in the Employee Self-Service tab under personal information.

Yes. Contact Scott Canner at scanner2@utk.edu for more information.

Disclosure forms are not designed to prevent outside engagements. They are to meet federal requirements for disclosure and to support reviews and management plans necessary to ensure research is performed without real or perceived bias.

Failure to follow best practices related to authorship and publication can lead to authorship, plagiarism, and publications that are not clear representations of research results.

Excellent resources include UT Libraries Scholarly Publishing Toolkit, the Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of Research Integrity’s Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing, and COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) Authorship and contributorship website.