Comparing research integrity responses in Australia and The Netherlands

Last year, I was invited by Tracey Bretag to contribute a chapter to the Handbook of Academic Integrity. The invite was a little unusual – find another author and work with him or her to compare how research integrity has been dealt with in your two jurisdictions. It could have gone horribly wrong. It didn’t, for two reasons. First, I was delighted to be partnered with Pieter Drenth whose career happens to include a period as Vice-Chancellor of VU University Amsterdam, and President of both the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and the ALLEA (All European Academies). Secondly, the exercise of comparing research integrity strategies in Australia and The Netherlands actually proved to be highly productive, helped me understand some of the strengths and weaknesses of the Australian response, and was a timely reminder of the value of assessing critically what might be happening in research integrity beyond the borders of our own countries..