The following Declaration of the AIRAPT Ethics Task Group (G. Ackland, F. Coppari, S. Deemyad, S. Klotz, H. Liu, J. Manjon, S. Scandolo, J. S. Schilling) was endorsed by the AIRAPT Executive Committee in July 2024:

The AIRAPT Ethics Task Group is concerned about recent issues leading to several retractions of high-pressure science studies, damaging the perception of our community and science in general. While these behaviors appear isolated, they underscore the importance of rigorous standards. The task group is developing written guidelines, to be presented at the 2025 AIRAPT conference, and suggests routine sessions on ethics and training at future conferences.

A particularly sensitive area is data treatment, presentation, and public access. Our work with small samples under extreme conditions often requires specific methods to ensure data quality and correct interpretations. Recent events highlight the need for clarity in explaining procedures from raw data to published results. Since studies typically involve multiple authors, it's essential to specify each author's contribution and the laboratory where experiments were conducted. Transparency is crucial for fair and timely communication by the community.

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What is the AIRAPT Ethics Task Group?

The idea of an AIRAPT Ethics Task Group was launched at the 28th AIRAPT and 60th EHPRG Joint Conference in Edinburgh in July 2023. For those of you who attended, you may recall that in my closing remarks I mentioned that one of the biggest challenges for us in the next years will be to attract the new generation of high pressure scientists. In this context, I stressed the importance of being role models for them, being exemplary on how we conduct research, how we collaborate and communicate. I suggested to make ethical behavior in scientific research a topic. I then announced that one of my priorities was to setup an AIRAPT Ethics Task Group that could help us achieve this goal.

How was the AIRAPT Ethics Task Group formed?

A few colleagues at the Edinburgh conference volunteered to be part of this new initiative and have since then met twice by Zoom.

Present members of the AIRAPT Ethics Task Group are:

G. Ackland
F. Coppari
S. Deemyad
S. Klotz
H. Liu
J. Manjon
S. Scandolo
J. S. Schilling

How can you contribute?

If you are interested in this topic and would like to contribute to or even join the AIRAPT Ethics Task Group, please send an email to the interim Chairs Shanti Deemyad and/or Stefan Klotz.