Northeastern State University proposes to host a one-day conference centered around Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) and RCR training in Oklahoma. The conference will be held at our Broken Arrow, Oklahoma location and will be open to all six of Oklahoma’s four-year Regional University Systems of Oklahoma (RUSO) institutions, which include 40% of all Oklahoma college graduates. RUSO institutions enroll more than 37,000 students per year, where 57% come from rural communities (RUSO.edu). Participating institutions will be asked to send up to four participants each. During the morning and midday sessions, participants will engage in active group discussions between guest professional speakers, scholars, and other faculty, providing participants the opportunity to discuss different areas of RCR training in the context of their work and research environment. The participants will be asked to speak and engage in conversations identifying the gaps and constraints they have related to research integrity, the needs for RCR training or changes, and the requirements for federally funded projects. In the afternoon, each institutional “team” will have proactive discussion about their particular institution with the opportunity to ask questions, find solutions to problems faced, as well as receive feedback from other area sister universities. The goal of the conference is for each institutional team to leave the conference more educated on RCR and with a plan for how to improve their Research Integrity, RCR Training Programs, or Research Ethics at their home institutions. Institutions participating in the conference will gain vital knowledge on federal RCR requirements, a deeper understanding of RCR, and the best practices on training students to be responsible researchers in a fashion that fits their institutions. In addition, participants of the RCR conference will have connections from across the state of Oklahoma to continue to engage in RCR conversa
tions with, discuss questions on pedagogy and training implementation, and further strengthen their institutions’ research integrity. By strengthening the research integrity at the Oklahoma RUSO schools, we will strengthen the state of Oklahoma’s research efforts. Additionally, results from the conference including planning materials, RCR training materials, and insights into the status of and best practices for RCR training will be broadly available to assist other institutions nationwide with implementation of successful RCR training programs.