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Science Advisor Programs

2016 Annual Report on Scientific Integrity

This Annual Report chronicles the implementation of EPA's Scientific Integrity Policy in fiscal year (FY) 2016. Since February of 2012, EPA's Scientific Integrity Policy has provided both a vision and a roadmap for ensuring scientific integrity at the Agency. The Policy describes the components of a culture of scientific integrity and offers a framework for ensuring Agency-wide participation in that culture. Although scientific integrity is treated as a single issue in the Policy, maintaining scientific integrity requires investment and collaboration from many parts of EPA. This year, instead of publishing a bound report, the scientific integrity activities of FY 2016 are reported online.
 
Scientific Integrity at EPA in FY 2016 – Highlights

In FY 2016, the Scientific Integrity Committee implemented numerous scientific integrity initiatives across the Agency. This year, whiteboard training videos were created and shown during Scientific Integrity Training to over 3,500 employees, with more to come in FY 2017. The half-hour training familiarizes employees and others with the EPA Scientific Integrity Policy.

The Scientific Integrity Best Practices for Designating Authorship was released, which lists the criteria for attributing credit and accountability to individuals and groups who contribute to EPA work products that designate authorship. This best practices document can be used as a tool to prevent and/or resolve authorship issues.

The Scientific Integrity Committee distributed an Agency-wide survey as part of a broader effort to formally evaluate the Scientific Integrity Policy and also to assess the current culture of scientific integrity within EPA.

During FY 2016, EPA programs and regional offices made significant strides to enhance the culture of scientific integrity at EPA. They distributed outreach materials, conducted and received training, and developed and updated QA procedures. They also pushed for public release of data sets and developed dashboards to help users explore the data to increase transparency within the Agency.

Scientific integrity is a continual priority at EPA, and we must keep building on our successes to further promote our culture of scientific integrity.

Information about new products related to scientific integrity.
 
Information about accomplishments in promoting a culture of scientific integrity across the Agency.
 
Updated statistics on allegations of a loss of scientific integrity and summaries of allegations that were adjudicated.
 
Review of internal and external outreach conducted by the Scientific Integrity Program in FY 2016.