Education Switzerland establishes center for scientific integrity

From 2026, a new competence center will promote academic integrity at Swiss universities and serve as an advice center for misconduct.

The Swiss University Conference has decided to establish a competence center for academic integrity in Switzerland. With the adoption of the ordinance on quality assurance in the area of academic integrity, an important step has been taken to strengthen standards at universities.

From 2026, the competence center will advise universities in Switzerland on issues of scientific integrity, best practices and international developments. It will also serve as a point of contact for reporting and advising on misconduct in the area of scientific integrity.

The Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences emphasized that the center will network the existing specialist units at the universities and ensure compliance with the Code of Academic Integrity. It will take on an advisory role without conducting investigations itself or imposing sanctions. The responsibility for taking action against misconduct by researchers will remain with the universities.

In addition, the Center will collect data on compliance with scientific integrity in order to obtain a comprehensive overview of the situation in Switzerland and to enable international comparisons. Compliance with these rules is a globally recognized quality feature for research locations and ensures the reliability of research results as well as the careful data collection and responsibility of the authors of scientific publications.

In 2021, the University Conference had already issued a code on scientific integrity that meets international standards and is widely used in the scientific community.