NASA scientific integrity policy

Abstract

On 16 December, NASA became the latest U.S. federal agency to issue a scientific integrity policy. It was issued less than 10 days after the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued its policy on the same topic (see “NOAA issues scientific integrity policy,” Eos Trans. AGU, 92(50), 467, doi:10.1029/2011EO500004, 2011). The agency policies respond to earlier White House memos on the topic issued in 2009 and 2010. NASA is the fifth federal department or agency that has finalized a scientific integrity policy; the Department of the Interior and the National Science Foundation also have finalized their policies. As Eos went to press, 13 other policies were in near–final draft form, including those from the departments of Agriculture and Energy; the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Labor had indicated that they expected to submit their policies to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) soon, OSTP director John Holdren wrote in a 21 December note on the office's Web site.