Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research (RECR, also known as RCR) is a required training that must be completed by those working on projects supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) or the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture (USDA-NIFA). Failure to complete this training will jeopardize your ability to work on any research project supported by NSF or USDA-NIFA funding.
Anyone funded through an NSF or USDA-NIFA grant must take RCR Core Training through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI). This includes: PIs, co-PIs, postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students, and research staff.
The NSF mandates that institutions have a plan in place to provide appropriate RECR training and oversight to anyone supported by NSF.
The University of Minnesota summarizes our RCR/RECR for all federally funded grants (NIH, NSF, and USDA-NIFA) in our Institutional RCR Plan.
Approved Courses, Seminars and Activities
Many University of Minnesota courses and seminars meet the research ethics training requirement set forth by the NSF and USDA-NIFA as well as the University of Minnesota. Some are for-credit offerings and enrollment may be limited to students accepted into a specific degree program. All courses, seminars or other activities must include core topics related to authorship and plagiarism, data/research integrity, reporting misconduct, and be approved by the Research Integrity and Compliance Department.
View a list of approved courses. To request a course or seminar be added to the list, contact [email protected].
Report Approved Training
If your program does not report completed courses and activities directly to the Research Integrity and Compliance Department, students can submit a completion form. Completion of the CITI RCR Core training will be automatically recorded.
Deadlines
Training requirements must be completed within the first 30 days the student, postdoctoral fellow, or research staff receive funding to conduct research on an NSF- or USDA-NIFA-funded project. If a student is enrolled in a semester-long course that extends beyond the 30-day deadline, the student must provide proof of completion of the course.
If the training is not completed within the 30-day deadline, the funding will be retroactively pulled until completion.