RUB Research School

Ethics and Rights in Research

Good Scientific Practice & Data Protection

As a postdoc, you will be independently responsible for good scientific practice as well as all legal issues related to your research. In addition to the responsibility for the integrity of your own research, you will assume initial institutional responsibility: for supervising students, collaborating with doctoral researchers on your project, and being responsible for joint publications or reviewer activities.

Good Scientific Practice

You will find all important guidelines for your research practice and your institutional responsibility in the code "Guidelines for Ensuring Good Scientific Practice". It formulates recommendations on many important topics of scientific integrity:

  • professional ethics
  • responsibility of the management of working units & supervision
  • research design, methods and standards
  • legal and ethical frameworks, rights of use
  • documentation of research results
  • establishment of public access to research results
  •  authorship
  • confidentiality and neutrality in reviews and consultations

Since we understand your responsibility for good scientific practice as an individual responsibility in research, we believe that individual support for your questions and concerns is appropriate. You can contact the Ombudspersons for good scientific practice at RUB with your questions on this topic. At your request, we can certainly arrange a workshop or an informal exchange.

Data Protection in Research

RUB also advises you on questions regarding data protection in research. If you have questions about the basic legal framework for the collection and use of personal data for your research and need expertise on which legal requirements your personal research must meet, you may contact the data protection officer of RUB.