Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A postdoctoral researcher who reports suspected image duplication in their supervisor's grant figures through the institution's research-integrity office and is protected against subsequent retaliatory actions.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A person making allegations they know to be false in order to damage a competitor; such bad-faith reports are not protected and may themselves constitute misconduct.
Editorial commentary
Whistleblowers in research are protected under various national frameworks: in the US under 42 CFR Part 93 (which prohibits retaliation by PHS-funded institutions), in the UK under the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 as amended, and across the EU under Directive (EU) 2019/1937. Protections typically depend on the disclosure being made through specified internal or external channels in good faith. ORI's 'Handling Misconduct – Whistleblowers' guidance, ENRIO statements, and the UKRIO Procedure all stress that whistleblowers must be treated confidentially and protected from retaliation, regardless of whether the underlying allegation is ultimately substantiated.
Confidentiality and anonymity are frequently conflated but are not the same protection. Most research-integrity frameworks (ORI, UKRIO, ENRIO) commit to keeping a reporter’s identity confidential from the subject of the allegation and unrelated third parties, but confidential reporting still identifies the reporter to the institution or body handling the case; a fully anonymous channel, where even the institution cannot identify the reporter, is a separate and less common option that some institutions and jurisdictions offer alongside — not as equivalent to — confidential reporting. Under the EU Whistleblower Directive (EU) 2019/1937, legal entities with 50 or more workers, and separately all public-sector bodies, are required to establish internal reporting channels; equivalent internal-channel obligations and their scope vary by jurisdiction outside the EU, so this should not be read as a universal threshold. For how a report of this kind proceeds once made, see the research integrity routing hub and the dedicated research misconduct entry.
References
- US Office of Research Integrity, 42 CFR Part 93 (2005)
- EU Whistleblower Directive (EU) 2019/1937
- UKRIO Procedure for the Investigation of Misconduct in Research (current edition)
Also known as
complainant · research-integrity reporter · good-faith reporter
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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