Red cards categories

Categories are here to help the reader identify different kinds of misconduct. Indeed, there is a continuum between all these misbehaviours, and these categories do not refer to any official classification. They do not suggest any hierarchy in the seriousness of the types of misconduct.
Fraudulent data

Fraudulent data

  • Fabrication: making up results and recording or reporting them.
  • Falsification: manipulating research, materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.
  • Plagiarism: the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or wordswithout giving appropriate credit, including those obtained through confidential review of others’ research proposals and manuscripts.
Non-complying publication

Non-complying publication

Non-respect of editorial policies and standards. This category includes (non exhaustively):

  • Non disclosure conflict of interest.
  • Misdeclaration of authorship or contributorship (e.g. undeserved authorship or denied authorship to contributors).
Unethical research practice

Unethical research practice

Unethical treatment of research subjects. This category includes (non exhaustively, see CSE white paper)

  • Failure to obtain approval from an ethical review board before starting the study.
  • Absent or inadequate informed consent of human subjects.
  • Maltreatment of laboratory animals.