As a researcher, you are expected to abide by the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. [1] Among other responsibilities set out in the Code, researchers are expected to “comply with relevant legislation, policies and guidelines”. Alongside the Code, universities have policies to ensure the responsible conduct of research. Further, academic disciplines often have different considerations that must be acknowledged, such as methodological approaches, perspectives, ethical codes [2] and evaluation practices. [3]

Why is it relevant?

Ethical and regulatory compliance is integral to good research and practice. Research integrity enables confidence in data collection, outputs and recommendations, [4] alongside the fair and dignified treatment of research subjects. [5] Complying with discipline-specific and legal requirements also minimises the risks of physical or mental harm to research subjects and the research team, as well as managing potential risks to associated organisations’ reputations. [6]

Practical steps

Key concepts to understand:

• Research integrity: conduct research honestly, ethically and rigorously. [1]
• Responsible data management: retain accurate, clear, secure and complete records of all data and materials used in research. [1]
• Authorship and publication practices: appropriately credit those who have made significant contributions to research and associated outputs. [7]
• Supervision and mentoring: supervisors have responsibilities towards those under their guidance, particularly to provide support, work cooperatively and ensure that all relevant training is completed. [8]
• Research misconduct accusations: if you are accused of breaching the Code, the investigating institution must abide by the principles laid out in Section 3 [9], allowing the accused to be heard, decisions to be made based on evidence and without bias.

Guidelines to consult:

• Research ethics for human and animal research: your research must go through an ethics review process aligned with the subject and methods; different standards are required for ethics exemptions, human and animal research (see the “Research Ethics” factsheet).
• Laboratory regulations regarding biosafety and chemical / radiation material: check the regulations of the laboratories you will be working in to ensure that you comply and understand what safety precautions must be taken (see the “Health and Safety” factsheet).
• Indigenous Research Governance: research involving Indigenous participants or knowledge requires consideration and understanding to ensure culturally appropriate methods and actions (see the factsheets on “Co-design with Indigenous Communities” and “Engage with Indigenous Communities”).
• Funding and Grant Compliance: funding and grants often come with specific guidelines as to how research must be conducted and managed, and how funds can be spent. [10]
• Disciplinary and Professional standards: You must consider and comply with standards relevant to your discipline and profession such as methodological approaches, laboratory protocols, authorship conventions, and peer-review ethics.

Why is it relevant?

Authorship order is one of the main ways scientific credit is distributed and interpreted. Positions such as first, last, and corresponding author are often used to infer contribution, leadership, responsibility, and seniority. As a result, authorship order can influence hiring, promotion, funding opportunities, professional visibility, and career progression. 

Because particular authorship positions have acquired significant value, discussions about authorship order are often sensitive and contested. At the same time, the meaning attached to these positions is not universal. Different disciplines rely on different conventions, and collaborators may hold different expectations about who should occupy particular positions and what those positions represent. When these assumptions remain implicit, authorship order can become a source of misunderstanding, disagreement, or tension within research teams. 

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Hidden Assumptions

Authorship order is often treated as a straightforward representation of contribution. This assumes that different forms of work can be compared, arranged in a single sequence, and interpreted consistently by collaborators, readers, and evaluators. 

In practice, these assumptions do not always hold. Different disciplines use different conventions, contributions may be difficult to compare directly, and the same authorship order may be understood in different ways. 

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Practical Steps

Authorship order is often treated as the outcome of a project. However, teams may benefit from discussing how authorship order will be determined. Making expectations, criteria, and decision-making processes explicit can help reduce misunderstandings and support more transparent discussions about recognition and credit. 

Questions that may be useful to discuss include: 

• What authorship conventions are relevant to this project?
• Which contributions are most important for this particular output?
• How will different forms of work be recognised and compared?
• How will changes in contribution be reflected if the project evolves?
• Who will participate in authorship order discussions?
• How will disagreements be addressed?

Because authorship order distributes recognition and opportunity, all contributors share responsibility for ensuring that the process is understood and open to discussion. 

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Case Study

The CLEAR Lab, led by Max Liboiron, developed an “Equity in Author Order” protocol to support discussions about authorship order. Rather than beginning with individual authors, the process starts by identifying the forms of labour that made the project possible and discussing which contributions were most central to the work. The team then maps contributors to these forms of labour and collectively discusses how authorship order should be established. The protocol also encourages researchers to reflect on how different forms of work are recognised and how existing inequalities may shape authorship decisions.  

Conflicts of interest exist in “a situation where an independent observer might reasonably conclude that the professional actions of a person are or may be unduly influenced by other interests.” [1] Perceptions of conflicts of interest are just as important as actual conflicts of interests. [2] 

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Why is it relevant?

Avoiding and properly disclosing conflicts of interest is essential to maintaining the integrity, credibility, and reliability of research. Conflicts of interest can introduce bias into decision-making processes, potentially compromising research outcomes and, in serious cases, leading to misconduct or corruption. [3] Failing to properly manage actual and perceived conflicts of interest can erode public trust in science, generally, as well as in the individuals and organizations involved in a particular project. In this sense, proactive and responsible management of such conflicts is essential to preserving public trust. [1] 

In Australia, researchers are required to adhere to the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research, which explicitly mandates ‘transparency in declaring interests.’ [1] Similarly, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors has characterised a purposeful failure to disclose a conflict of interest as a form of research misconduct. [2] Together, these standards highlight the critical importance of openness and accountability in responsible research practice. 

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Practical Steps

1. Disclose to your institution all interests that are relevant, or could appear to be relevant, to proposed or ongoing research. This could include financial interests such as direct or indirect payments, company shares or options, royalties, directorships, some scholarships, and operational or infrastructure support. It also includes non-financial interests such as board memberships, personal or social relationships, and/or recent employment with organisations affiliated with industry groups that could stand to benefit from the research. [1]
2. If a conflict of interest exists, your institution will determine the appropriate measures to manage the conflict of interest. Examples of measures that might be taken include requiring the public disclosure of interests when publishing or presenting the research; involving another individual to oversee the research; and requiring the researcher to excuse themselves from any deliberate decision-making, play a reduced role in the research or relinquish financial or other interests. [1]
3. Refer to and comply with your institutional policies. Your institution has a responsibility to maintain policies and procedures for the disclosure and management of interests.  
4. Broader disclosure of conflicts of interest. Conflicts may also need to be disclosed in other instances, such as in funding applications and applications to ethics committees where the conflict impacts the work in question. 

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Case Study

Case Study 1: A study by researchers at the University of Sydney, published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, found that many Australian medical researchers failed to disclose payments from pharmaceutical companies. One in four researchers out of 120 trials had at least one undeclared conflict, averaging an undisclosed payment value of almost $9000. The disclosure of these payments is important because pharmaceutical industry funding is commonly associated with a bias towards favourable results for the tested product. [4]  

Case Study 2: In another case, Shahar and Sayers (2018) published an article on abnormal bone growths protruding from the base of younger peoples’ skulls, which the researchers claimed was due to bad posture and phone use. [5] The initial research generated great concern, until closer scrutiny revealed an undeclared conflict of interest by the first author – a chiropractic clinician who provides posture related advice and products. [6]  The paper was later edited to clarify these conflicts, and to redraft sections to emphasise that: genetic predisposition may be a factor; the data was taken retrospectively from a clinician’s database for individuals presenting only with mild symptomology; and “great care should be taken to avoid over generalising these results to an asymptomatic general population”. 

Research ethics are ‘norms of conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour’ when performing scientific research. [1] Ethical conduct requires more than simply ‘doing the right thing’; it requires acting in the right spirit and with respect and concern for fellow human beings, animals, and the environment. [2] In Australia, obtaining ethics approval is mandatory for research involving human or animal participants. 

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Why is it relevant?

Human research has contributed enormously to scientific breakthroughs. While much of this research carries minimal risk, some forms of human research can involve significant harm if conducted improperly.  Historical examples demonstrate how serious ethical failures can lead to the violation of human rights, such as inappropriate and poor research practices that have been conducted in relation to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia. In recognition of these risks, ethics guidelines have been developed to ensure that interactions between researchers and participants are ethically acceptable to the Australian community, supported by laws that impose general and specific responsibilities on researchers and institutions and establish rights for participants. 

Furthermore, ethics review of human research is not uniform; rather, it operates at different levels depending on the degree of risk involved. Ethics review processes also consider potential power imbalances between researchers and participants due to institutional affiliation, socioeconomic factors, or cultural context. Researchers are therefore expected to ensure that participation is voluntary, informed, and free from coercion or undue influence. 

As part of the ethics application process, researchers are typically required to justify their study design, including providing a sample size estimate (depending on the research scope) or equivalent rationale to show that the study is methodologically sound and has sufficient statistical power to address the research question. This requirement reflects the ethical principle that research should avoid exposing participants to unnecessary burden or risk through underpowered or unnecessarily large studies. [3] [4] 

Animal research has also been essential to scientific progress, yet it too can involve significant harm if not performed responsibly. Ethical frameworks exist to ensure that the use of animals in research is justified and reflects community expectations regarding animal welfare. Australian laws and institutional guidelines set clear responsibilities for researchers to minimise harm, apply ethical principles such as replacement, reduction, and refinement, and ensure that interactions between humans and animals meet accepted ethical standards. [5]  

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Practical Steps

1. Determine whether your research requires ethical clearance prior to commencing research.

• According to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2025), research conducted with or about people, or their data or biospecimens, is considered human research and requires ethical clearance prior to commencing research.  
• According to the Australian Code for the Care and Use of Animals for Scientific Purposes (8th Edition), research or teaching with live non-human vertebrates and cephalopods requires approval from an Animal Ethics Committee (AEC) prior to commencing any animal work.  This includes research or teaching activity that involves the use, handling or observation of animals, or any activity that affects the habitat of animals. In some institutions (e.g., UQ), ethics approval for using biological material derived from animals is also required.

2. Refer to the procedure for ethics review established by your institution.

• Institutions are responsible for establishing procedures for the ethics review of human and animal research. [6] Researchers should therefore follow the ethics review procedures in place at their institution, typically managed by the university’s ethics and integrity office. It is likely the type of review required will differ depending on the degree of risk involved in the research. For example, a project which foresees greater than discomfort for participants may require a Full Committee Review, whereas a project in which the only foreseeable risk is discomfort may be deemed suitable for review through a lower risk pathway review. For human research, these procedures will reflect the two broad themes considered in human research ethics: the risk and benefits of research, and participants’ consent.[7] For animal research, these procedures will be underpinned by the obligation to respect animals, which involves balancing whether the potential effects on the wellbeing of animals are justified by the potential benefits to humans, animals and the environment. [8]  

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Case Study

Case Study 1: Among contemporary examples, the Human Genome Diversity Project (HDGP), which took place between 1991 and 1997, is a well-known case of controversial and unethical research practices, famously labelled by Indigenous leaders in Australia (and many outside Australia) as “the vampire project”. The initiative was heavily criticized for portraying Indigenous Peoples as “Isolates of Historical Interest” whose genetic information needed to be harvested before they “vanished”. This project faced intense opposition due to its lack of adequate consultation and consent mechanisms, the immortalization of Indigenous cells, and significant concerns regarding biopiracy and the commercial exploitation of genetic material [9]. 

Case Study 2: A Monash University study that exposed adolescent female rats to non-fatal strangulation and traumatic brain injury to model intimate partner violence has drawn strong ethical criticism. Supporters argue the animal model offers important insights into brain tissue that cannot be analysed in living humans. However, critics question whether the severe suffering and oxygen deprivation inflicted on the animals can be justified when non-animal methods, such as neuroimaging and computational models, are available. [10]