If you drive a car in a foreign country, while the fundamentals of operating a vehicle might be the same, it’s still important to know which side of the road to drive on, whether the speed limit is in mph or kph, and whether you can be fined for splashing pedestrians with water.

And so it is with research integrity; while most countries have similar principles, policies and guidance do vary around the world. In the UK, the overarching document setting standards for all research organisations is the UK Concordat to Support Research Integrity (or simply, the Concordat) first published in 2012, updated in 2019 and again in 2025.

It starts with five key principles that have remained the same throughout the three versions of the Concordat, as they are foundational and necessary to maintain the highest standards of research integrity. Honesty, rigour, transparency and open communication, care and respect and accountability.

The rest of the Concordat is structured around five commitments which have all been revisited and refreshed, reflecting changes in research practices as well as emerging technologies. A document from the UK Committee on Research Integrity (UKCORI) – who now host the Concordat online – sets out why and where these changes were made by the Research Integrity Concordat Signatories Group (which includes Cancer Research UK). Each commitment contains actions for different groups of people – employers (such as universities), funders and those conducting research. One change I’m very positive about is that the terminology has become much more inclusive – where it used to say “researchers” it now uses the term “research community”.

I find this helpful for two reasons. The first is that when I’m talking about the principles in the Concordat, or delivering training on research integrity, I can now explicitly include everyone regardless of their specific job title, or whether they would consider themselves to be a ‘researcher’.

The second is personal: having moved out of a lab five years ago, my role is very much in the ‘research-enabling’ category, which meant that the ‘researcher’ language didn’t really feel like it applied to me. This ‘research community’ term means that I can now see myself in the Concordat – when I design an activity or write a policy, I’m able to remind myself of these core principles and how they apply to my work.

Addressing the elephant in the room

Commitment 4 in the 2019 Concordat focused heavily on research misconduct, largely from the perspective of helping define the most serious breaches of research integrity, and setting out how organisations should fairly and transparently conduct investigations. In delivering training around the Concordat it felt important to make researchers aware of what was expected of them, but most of this Commitment felt quite distant from the day-to-day experience of most researchers.

With growing recognition that activities falling below the threshold of misconduct can have serious impacts on the quality and reliability of research, the revised Concordat broadens this section to include questionable research practices. These are defined as “minor infractions or research practices, including avoidable errors, which fall short of the definition of intentional research misconduct.” The Concordat says they may arise from “lack of knowledge or attention to detail” – areas that feel like low hanging fruit for improving research practices through better training and support for researchers.

Sometimes questionable research practices can arise through “negligence, or deliberate action, and may occur where there is no evident intention to deceive” – this is why it’s so important to create an open research culture where it’s normal to address mistakes and to destigmatise correcting the research record. The new emphasis in this section of the Concordat supports this direction of travel while making it very clear what the expected standards for research are, and I’m looking forward to seeing how research institutions build on this commitment to further their training of researchers.

Electric dreams

As you might expect, one area which was repeatedly raised during the Concordat review process was artificial intelligence, especially generative AI.

With the pace of change being so high, and AI being trialled and incorporated into many research practices, some stakeholders suggested that AI should be specifically addressed in the Concordat. However, the signatories group decided that the principles of the Concordat remain applicable to the questions surrounding the use of AI in research – so rather than adding a new section on AI in research, the review summary states:

“We looked at AI through the lens of the Concordat principles and agreed that the principles remain applicable to the current environment. Rather than making explicit reference to AI, the revised Concordat refers to ‘emerging technology’ to include further future developments.”

Again, this feels very helpful on a practical level, as I’m sure many people feel like they are playing whack-a-mole with questions around AI usage, so thinking about ‘emerging technology’ opens the space for a more values-based approach, such as that explored in previous research integrity blogs on Generative AI in research. It should also help ensure the longevity of the Concordat, as most likely there will be other emerging technologies and applications that we haven’t yet seen in action, but to which we will still be able to apply the principles like honesty, rigour, transparency, care and accountability.