This is a list of short summaries of advisory opinions. The list also includes decisions. In these cases, LOWI has declared the petition inadmissible. It has therefore not examined the substance of the petition and has not issued an advisory opinion.
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The full text of the advisory opinion is only available in Dutch. If you want to read the full text in English, you can use the Dutch text for translation purposes.
- Advisory opinion 2024-07The university was found not to have academic responsibility for the conduct of the Interested Party. The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, however, was found to be responsible for this. The complaint was found to be inadmissible (see also 2024-08 and 2024-09)
- Advisory opinion 2024-06This case would seem primarily to constitute a dispute between the directors of a business. Such disputes should not seek to be resolved as if they were matters of research integrity. RICs and the LOWI are not authorised to rule on intellectual property law.
- Advisory opinion 2024-05The Co-Principal Investigator was wrongly excluded from the grant application. No plagiarism was found to have been committed. The LOWI categorised the breach of standards as constituting questionable conduct on the part of all the researchers, including the associate professors not wanting to participate in the LOWI procedure.
- Advisory opinion 2024-04The publication restrictions imposed on the petitioner were not found to result in a breach of standard 58 in the Code of Conduct (‘Do not delay or hinder the work of other researchers in an inappropriate manner.’). LOWI advised on how to proceed and on the institution’s duty of care.
- Advisory opinion 2024-03A former co-supervisor complained inter alia that an external PhD candidate’s thesis included insufficient references to the origin of texts and his own previously published work. With one exception (where a reference was found to be missing from a chapter of the thesis), the complaints were ruled to be unfounded. This conduct was regarded as ...
- Advisory opinion 2024-02This case concerned an interpretation of the 2018 Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. A complaints procedure is applicable only to research by students that results in academic publications, whereby it should be noted that a published Master’s thesis is not regarded as constituting such a publication.
- Advisory opinion 2024-01The petitioners’ lawyer was found to have breached the duty of confidentiality. Given the nature and low severity of the breach of the duty of confidentiality in this case, deciding to stop handling the complaint was found to be disproportional.
- Advisory opinion 2023-20Complaint has not been dealt with diligently since it was not forwarded to the RIC. LOWI advises to create a mailbox specially intended for the RIC and to publish the e-mail address on the website of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
- Advisory opinion 2023-19When a scientist violates the code of conduct this means that the issued complaint is well-founded. Also when non-compliance constitutes solely as a minor shortcoming. It is however desirable to clarify that well-foundedness does not necessarily imply research misconduct.
- Advisory opinion 2023-18Repeated lack of due care in referring to the scientific work of Petitioner. This counts more heavily against the Professor who is also Petitioner’s former promotor (2023-17) than it counts against the other scientists involved.