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Scientific Integrity

The University of Amsterdam endorses the principles of the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Academic Practice. This Code obliges scientific practitioners not only to respect the principles of meticulousness, reliability, verifiability, impartiality and independence, but also to do everything within their power to promote and ensure compliance with these principles in their academic environment.

One way to verify academic integrity is to exercise the right of complaint when employees have violated or are suspected of having violated academic integrity. Therefore, the UvA has adopted the Academic Integrity Complaints Regulations, describing the appropriate measures in the event of a possible violation of academic standards. The UvA has appointed a University Academic Integrity Adviser who can be approached for questions or complaints about academic integrity. This adviser will first seek to mediate or find a solution for the complaint. When this fails the adviser will refer to the Academic Integrity Committee, where a formal complaint can be lodged.

The policy of the KdVI is to further strengthen the policy of the university by making explicit what this policy means for mathematicians.  We have adopted the ethical code of the European Mathematical Society and relevant parts of the code of the American Mathematical Society (see appendix for the relevant sections). At KdVI we address the following aspects of academic integrity as far as research is concerned:

  • One should not present results of others as one’s own results. (Plagiarism)
  • One should correctly and generously give credit to, and reference for, relevant work of others.
  • One should seriously investigate the originality of one’s own work.
  • One should not claim results without being able to provide proofs at short notice.
  • One should not submit and/or publish essentially the same work as original work in more than one journal. 
  • One should only be co-author when one’s contribution is substantial enough to justify this.

Already in the bachelor programme scientific integrity is addressed in several courses. In the master programme integrity is part of the process of writing the master thesis. The UvA has very strict rules on plagiarism for PhD Theses, described in the “Doctorate Regulations 2014”. A plagiarism check is performed on each thesis, both in the bachelor, master and PhD programme.

The policy on research integrity is communicated through the website of the institute. New employees are made aware of the policy. Junior staff, i.e. PhD candidates and Postdocs, are coached in these aspects by their supervisors.