SUTD is committed to the highest ethical standards in furtherance of our mission of teaching, research and public service. We recognize that we hold our institution in trust for the people of Singapore. Our respective policies, procedures, codes of conduct and standards provide guidance for application of the ethical values stated below in our daily life and work as members of the research community, and each of our institutions is committed to abide by the Singapore Statement of Research Integrity1. In addition to our respective institutions’ existing policies, procedures, codes of conduct and standards, all members of our research community2 are expected to strictly adhere to the following research publication principles:

Key Principles

  1. Leadership: Senior research personnel must lead by example in upholding the highest standards and provide active oversight and management of the research work that goes into publication.

  2. Honesty: Research personnel must ensure consistency in data that are represented in the publication and prevent inappropriate or fraudulent data manipulation.

  3. Reproducibility: Research personnel must maintain accurate and detailed research records of procedures and results (for a minimum of 10 years3), to allow others to replicate the work, and ensure reproducibility of one’s experimental results.

  4. Citation: Research personnel must provide appropriate citation for all usage of text, data or figures from other publications, sources or individuals, including from one’s previous publications. Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, is unacceptable.

  5. Acknowledgement: Research personnel must appropriately recognize individuals who have contributed to their publications. Individuals and organisations who have contributed to the publication must be acknowledged, and those who have provided substantial intellectual contribution, and/or who have participated in the drafting of the publication, should be recognized as authors.

  6. Reporting: Research personnel must be proactive in reporting suspicious practices that do not meet these key principles to their respective institutions. 

We are committed to adopting the highest standards of research and publication ethics and standards at all times. Any breach of these principles will be dealt with by the respective institutions’ disciplinary procedures.

The above is a unified set of standards for research publications adopted by A*STAR, NTU, NUS and SUTD.  Please refer to news release for more information.


1 The Singapore Statement on Research Integrity can be found here.
2 Research personnel include staff, faculty, consultants, technicians, students and any personnel who are engaged in research.
3 Respective institutions may require records to be kept for a period longer than 10 years to fulfil other requirements at their discretion.