Office of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studiesupdated May 2015

BioMed Division Training Grants –Text onModule on RCR Training

RCR Training in the Division of Biology and Medicine:

All first-year graduate students in the Division are required to successfully complete “The Ethics of Responsible Conduct in Research”.It is also recommended that newly hired postdoctoral trainees participate in this training.

This seven-week introduction to the scope and complexity of ethical situations that confront modern biologists is led by the Division's Associate Dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and taught by BioMed Division faculty.This training covers multiple topics including: i) the context and history of ethical research practices within scholarship; ii) the peer review process and its purpose; iii) data acquisition, storage, and privacy; iv) legal and ethical considerations in animal research; v) publication practices and responsible authorship; vi) practical and ethical issues in human-subjects research; vii) the mentoring relationship and associated responsibilities of mentors and trainees; viii) recognizing and navigating conflicts of interest and research misconduct; ix) electronic data management issues; x) copyright and intellectual property issues; xi) individual development plans (IDP); and xii) rigor and reproducibility of data.Discussion of the ethics of diversity is incorporated throughout to convey an appreciation for the fact that differences of race, culture, age, gender, (dis)ability, and religion can affect the conduct and interpretation of research.

The training includes presentations, short illustrative films specific to biomedical research issues, and small group discussion of hypothetical and real scenarios drawn from current literature and news media.Division faculty and University staff participate as presenters and discussants along with students.The emphasis is on dialog and the contextualization of ethical decision making in the biological sciences.

RCR training is conducted at the start of the academic year so that students are able to incorporate this important information into their coursework and early research experiences.To successfully complete the course, students must participate in all sessions, complete homework assignments, and score 75% or better on the final examination.Students receive certificates of completion and their Graduate Program Directorsare notified.Students who do not successfully complete training must fulfill additional RCR assignments.This required introductory Division-wide training is a starting point for ongoing instruction by individual graduate programs and faculty mentors, who are urged to stimulate dialogue regarding ethical conduct in science as relevant situations arise in research projects or the laboratory.

BioMed RCR Refresher Course:

In addition, in accordance with recommendations by the National Institutes of Health, we require graduate students to receive a refresher course in RCR training during their 4th year of graduate school by completing our BioMed RCR Refresher course. These are a series of 2.5h sessions held on the last Wednesday of the months of January, May, and September. As with the main RCR course, the sessions are led by the Associate Dean for Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and BioMed Division faculty. The sessions are as follows:

  • Session I
  • Authorship
  • Mentoring
  • Reproducibility
  • Session II
  • Conflict of Interest
  • Misconduct
  • Animal Subjects
  • Session III
  • Peer Review
  • Collaborative research
  • Data Management
  • Human Subjects

In order to satisfactorily complete the BioMed RCR Refresher Course, the student must attend all 3 sessions or attend 2 sessions and complete the CITI RCR refresher course onlinewith at least 80% grade on the module quizzes. For details on Brown’s use of the CITI program, please visit

RCR Programming across fields:

While training courses fulfill the necessity of focusing on discipline-specific ethical issues, Brown University feels that it is critical to bring students of all disciplines into dialogue with each other about ethics as an academy-wide aspect of graduate education.This interdisciplinary programming places the ethics of biological research in a larger context.The Academy in Context series ( sponsored by the Graduate School and the Office of Student Life, brings graduate students and faculty from across the University together to discuss ethical issues with faculty speakers and outside experts.The focus on ethics has allowed us to invite speakers on a very wide range of topics—from the way computer technology is altering human bodies, or the intersections between governmental policymaking and the scientific community, to the ethical dimensions of negotiating ownership of the past in archaeological excavations.The large dinner-seminar is complemented by smaller group discussions that focus on specific ethical applications.These workshops synthesize questions, identify other readings on the topic, and make suggestions for aspects that can be woven into the curriculum of courses across the campus.Rather than being divided along disciplinary lines, participants are part of teams that include engineers, humanists, social scientists, and physical scientists.They not only learn about the issues, but they also see how people with different backgrounds think about the issues.

Faculty involved with the RCR classes are:

Topic / Faculty / Department/ Program
Responsible authorship & publication / Professors David Badre, Anne Hart, Barry Connors, David Sheinberg, Diane Lipscombe / Departments of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences (CLPS) and Neuroscience
Mentor/ Mentee responsibilities / Professors Julie Kauer, Anne Hart, Karla Kaun, David Berson, Dima Anso, Gilad Barnea, Anita Zimmerman, Elena Oancea, Qing Lu / Departments of Neuroscience, CLPS, Medicine, and Molecular Phamacology, Physiology, & Biotechnology (MPPB)
Human Subjects / Professors Leigh Hochberg, Tara White, Dima Anso, Dan Dickstein, Jake Kurtis, Eric Morrow / Departments of Neuroscience, CLPS, Behavioral & Social Sciences (BSS), Psychiatry & Human Behavior, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, Molecular Cell, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
Animal Subjects / Professors Lara Helwig, Diane Hoffman-Kim / Animal Care Facility and Department of MPPB
Collaborative science with academia and industry / Professors Justin Fallon, Kristi Wharton, Kim Boekelheide / Departments of Neuroscience, MCB, and Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Data Management/ Big Data / Professors Thomas Serre, Ian Wong, Casey Dunn, Kate Smith, RobbertCreton, Beth Brainard, Nicola Neretti, Will Fairbrother / Departments of CLPS, Engineering, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB), MCB, and Computational Molecular Biology (CCMB)
Data Sharing / Professors Christopher Moore and Will Fairbrother and Librarian Andrew Creamer / Departments of Neuroscience, MCB, CCMB
Handling Misconduct / Associate Dean Elizabeth Harrington / BioMed
Conflict of Interest / Professors Janet Blume, Jeffrey Morgan, Anatoly Zhichkovich / Departments of Engineering, MPPB, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
Data reproducibility and rigor / Professors Thomas Serre, Eric Darling, Thomas Bartnikas / Departments of CLPS, MPPB, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine

S:\_Training Grants\Resources & Modules\RCRTraining Module_01-2015.docx