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Case 7c :

International Collaborations

Yi and Claudio have been working hard on a project for three years now. There have been many ups and downs so far:

The economic down turn meant that they were unable to obtain funding to do their field work together.

The political situation in Claudio's home nation meant that he had to return to do 6 months of military service.

The situation at Yi's university was quite unstable due to scandals with the Vice-Chancellor.

It has been a mess, but now the two collaborators are due to meet tonight in New York for the first time in 2 years to work on writing their findings. Their meeting is starting under a cloud, though.

Both researchers expressed discomfort working with a problem in the authorship of their research. Due to difficulties getting to the nation where they needed to conduct fieldwork, they brought in another collaborator from the nation—Cole. But they found that working with Cole was quite difficult as he simply was not able to perform the fieldwork they needed due to insufficiencies in his own training. And, due to the economic situation in the three nations, they could not bring Cole up to speed on critical skills to make him a genuine collaborator. Both Claudio and Yi know how very important it is for Cole to have international publications, but they do not feel that he was a genuine collaborator… everything he did they had to do again!

Claudio's wife, Bella, attended the 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity and has promised the two researchers that the will find help to sort the "Cole" problem in that document.

  Case Questions
  • What are the problems that the two researchers face now?
  • Is this a problem of collaborative research ethics or a problem of authorship ethics?
  • What obligations did Claudio and Yi have to Cole?
  • What obligations did Cole have to Claudio and Yi?
     

Review the Montreal Statement and consider the following questions:

  • Which clauses in this statement apply to this case? Can you defend your choice?
  • Is Bella correct? Does the Montreal Statement give Claudio and Yi guidance to solve the "Cole" problem?