Surprisingly, nothing was said about the case itself. According to Martin van Boxtel from the PSI, this would have been possible, “but there were no questions from the audience”. This latter was confirmed by various attendees to Observant (which was not allow to attend). In the meantime, the Executive Board has ordered an internal investigation into the matter. Who is actually doing this, they don’t want to say – but it should be completed in April.
"Could this happen to me?"
Van Boxtel thinks that the commotion has contributed to the turnout: with reportedly more than sixty participants, the hospital’s Greepzaal was quite full. “I suspect that many people started to think about the subject after the NRC article. They will have scratched their heads and wondered: could this also happen to me?”
Those present were informed about existing guidelines, such as MUMC+’s Research Code and the work done by the integrity platform, which has existed since 2018. We spoke about this with Van Boxtel, PSI chairman Matt Baker and FHML dean Annemie Schols.
No lack of questions
Should the guidelines not be common knowledge for researchers? After all, the information is available online and new FHML researchers are compelled to take note of it. Schols thinks that “awareness is not created merely by putting information on a website, but also by discussing matters together. This subject often only becomes real when someone is personally affected.”
There was no lack of questions last week: for example, when you present yourself within the framework of a sideline as ‘someone from Maastricht University’. “There is no official policy for that, so how do you deal with that?”, says Baker.
What is an ancillary activity?
Or – the key question – when something is classified as a sideline. “There is a clear definition on our website,” says Schols, but every definition leaves room for interpretation. Editor of a scientific journal? Clearly a sideline, she states, so it should be registered.
But the chairmanship of a music association, as someone asked during the meeting? “Even that could be considered to be a sideline in a certain context,” according to Van Boxtel. He understands the request for more definite guidelines, but it is not possible to record everything in a document. Baker: “The guidelines are clear, but individual cases can be very complex.”
All three emphasise that the meeting was mainly intended to elicit a dialogue within the faculty. “That was also one of the conclusions,” says Schols: “The subject of academic integrity needs to be spoken about more often, for example within departments and in annual evaluations.”
Opennes
Another matter is openness: at the beginning of this year, all Dutch universities published a register listing the ancillary duties of their professors. But what about other researchers, the (senior) lecturers? FHML does not have a central public register for them, says Schols, but they do have to inform the faculty’s director through the online Success Factors’ platform about their ancillary duties. The director has to approve those, after which they are automatically published on the personal profile page. The dean suspects “that it is not yet etched in every non-professor’s mind that – and how – ancillary activities should be raised. Hence also this meeting”.