Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Science plays a pivotal role in advancing the work of philanthropy, government, and society at large. But it can only do so if it is accurate and objective. While dishonest practices can obviously impair science, perhaps less obvious is that "even when researchers suffer no lack of personal integrity, conventional practices common in their fields may produce findings that are misleading or invalid." Failures of both types of scientific integrity have recently come to light. This grant would support scientists to (a) assess the prevalence of suboptimal scientific practices, (b) assess the potential success of various interventions that have been implemented to address the problem, and (c) publish results and host a conference on scientific integrity to share findings.