Promoting RCR to New Staff

Following a series of seminars tailored to different HKU faculty groupings to promote Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR), a session specifically for new staff was held on April 30, 2011. “RCR is a core value to both experienced and young researchers, and through these seminars we want to ensure a high standard of research integrity is observed by all HKU researchers,” said Professor Paul Tam, Pro-Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Research).

Various RCR issues were discussed in the seminar. Questionable research practices including plagiarism, problems with authorship and infringement of intellectual property rights were raised by Professor Anthony Yeh, Head of the Department of Urban Planning and Design.

Professor Richard Wong, Professor of the School of Economics and Finance, shared some real cases where conflicts of interest had arisen and how they could be handled, covering contexts such as peer review, different power relationships and joint appointments.

"Our research is expected not just to have integrity, but also to be seen to have integrity”, said Professor John Bacon-Shone, Chairman of the Human Research Ethics Committee for Non-Clinical Faculties, who gave a presentation on ethical clearance for research involving human subjects.

In addition, safety considerations were addressed by Dr Edmund Hau, Director of Safety, and an online RCR programme was introduced by Dr Scott Smith, Associate Professor of the Department of Civil Engineering. 

The seminar was well-received. “Illustrating RCR issues with real-life experience and examples is useful, and I think to equip researchers with responsible conduct of research, the earlier, the better,” said one participant, echoing the importance of RCR.

To view the respective presentations, please visit the RCR Information page.