Launch of the Luxembourg Agency for Research Integrity (LARI)

Luxembourg now has a national agency for research integrity. LARI – the Luxembourg Agency for Research Integrity – was formally created in 2016 and as of late September also has a committee of international experts on the topic. This week, the committee was in Luxembourg to meet Marc Hansen, Luxembourg’s Minister Delegate for Higher Education and Research.

Luxembourg’s public research institutions formally created LARI in December 2016 as non-profit association (asbl). LARI will be fully operational within the next few weeks, once the Board – Chaired by FNR Secretary General Marc Schiltz and Vice Chaired by LISER’s Aline Muller – has appointed a Secretary General.

LARI sees it as its responsibility to raise awareness for research integrity and good scientific practices in Luxembourg. It will provide its member institutions a service facility and offer independent investigations of allegations of research misconduct.

In this context, LARI will pursue and promote a coherent and transparent approach in the follow-up of research misconduct and questionable research practices on a national level.

Marc Schiltz highlights the importance of the new agency for research in Luxembourg:
“Responsible conduct of research is an essential element of a modern science system. It was an important step for Luxembourg to create a structure which can promote good scientific practices and, if needed, can intervene to handle cases of scientific misconduct. I am very pleased that we have succeeded in establishing an international committee of experts to assist us in this task.”

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LARI committee

The national, independent expert committee of LARI is comprised of:

• Daniele Fanelli – Senior Research Scientist at METRICS – Meta-Research Innovation Center, Stanford University
• Mylène Deschenes – Directrice des affaires éthiques et juridiques au Fonds de recherche du Québec
• Vedran Katavić – former member of the Committee for Ethics in Science and Higher Education (CESHE), Croatia
• Torkild Vinther – Director, The National Commission for the Investigation of Research Misconduct, Norway
• Prof Dr Daniela N. Männel – Institut für Immunologie, Universität Regensburg, former member of the research integrity committee in Austria.

FNR and LARI

In the field of research integrity, the FNR already set up an international commission for scientific integrity in 2011, whose remit was limited to cases of scientific misconduct occuring in relation to FNR-funded projects.

During the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the Competitiveness Council (1st December 2015) adopted conclusions on research integrity.

The FNR also cooperates actively with Science Europe – an association of European Research Funding Organisations (RFO) and Research Performing Organisations (RPO) based in Brussels, as well as with the European Network of Research Integrity Offices (ENRIO) and other research ethics expert organisations.

 

Information from FNR (press release from 19 Oct 2017).