Reflecting Upon Ethical Imperatives for Scholarly Research and The Case of a South African University

Abstract

A university’s reputation is built on the quality of its research and teaching output. Often a university with an established track record on research and teaching output can more easily access external funding and further improve on its ranking and standing amongst peers.  This enables it to attract and retain better quality students, academics and researchers.  Ideally, these staff and students in turn increase the quality of its research and thus a virtuous circle is created.  Therefore, it is understandable that universities in South Africa, as in most parts of the world, are constantly scrambling to increase their research output and enhance their research quality.  However, whenever issues of compromised academic integrity and unethical research practices arise, university management has often been unable to deal adequately with these issues.  This article concurs with the emerging argument among research scholars that it is insufficient to focus on ethical policies and guidelines without considering the culture of the institution. It argues that the ethical researcher needs to be supported by a dominant culture of academic integrity. The article then uses the case of South African university to illustrate this argument.