The National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) have established training requirements in Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) for programs supporting research training, career development, or research education.

NSF expects UMBC to be able to verify that graduate and post-doctoral students receiving NSF funds, either in salary support or stipends to conduct research, receive RCR training. The RCR training requirement applies to all proposals submitted to NSF; excluded are proposals for conference, symposium, workshop, or travel submissions.   The RCR modules in CITI will assist students in meeting this need.

NIH requires the submission of an instructional plan addressing the responsible conduct of research for  any NIH training, career development award (individual or institutional), research education grant, and dissertation research grant , including D, F, K, R, T, U awards.  Online courses, such as the CITI RCR modules, can be a valuable supplement but they are not considered adequate by NIH to address the RCR requirements. Training plans must also include a minimum of eight substantive hours of face-to-face instruction in RCR topics. PIs must carefully review the Notice of Award to determine the RCR requirements for the specific award and ensure that they have a plan in place to meet the RCR requirements.

PIs are asked to complete the same RCR training as his/her students and postdoctoral researchers working on the project. Although this  action is not specifically required, both NSF and NIH has made it clear that they expect RCR to include a strong mentoring component, so it is important that PIs are familiar with the RCR training that their students and postdoctoral researchers have taken and can discuss it with them.

And, as a reminder, please be aware of the UMBC Graduate School's notice for RCR training.

For more information, please review the ORPC's site on RCR.