Name:  Amal Sallam, PhD.

Current position: Lecturer, Pharmacognosy Department, Faculty of Pharmacy, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.

Participation in the RCR program:

Many researchers when face ethical cases in research as authorship problems, conflict of interest, mentorship, research misconduct as plagiarism and so on, try to solve these problems through experiences of their own or of others due to the lack of clear policies and guidelines in the universities to solve these problems. Other researchers may make mistakes as research misconduct due to ignorance of the ethical rules that must be kept during conducting a research.

This makes the RCR program crucial to cover the lack of knowledge about the ethical issues related to conducting scientific research.

Every participant in the RCR program will be a starting point in his/her faculty or even university to help construct rules and policies that keep research integrity based on international ethical guidelines of conducting research.

Participants will form starting points or nuclei for constructing IRBs (Institutional Review board) or ethical committees that judge the ethical issues facing researchers in their universities

My Research Ethics Related Interests:

My research is concerned with the discovery of bioactive compounds from natural sources as plants. I did not study previously about ethical issues in conducting research as authorship, mentorship, research misconduct, conflict of interest and dealing with human and animal subjects. RCR program gives me the chance to study these ethical issues, consequently, being able to conduct a high quality research. Moreover, I will pass this knowledge to my students and colleagues. I will be able to participate in constructing guidelines and policies for conducting research on ethical principles within my faculty. I will be a qualified person to share in IRB or ethical scientific committee.

 Although, my research is not directly connected with human and animal subjects but I have to cooperate with colleagues who carry out biological studies of the compounds that I isolate. RCR program will enable me study ethical principles of scientific team work, ethical issues related to dealing with human and animal subjects and judging a study design.

Conducting research guided by ethics is crucial for keeping research integrity, keeping rights of all researchers and participants thus keeping confidence and respect that will be reflected in a high quality research.