NOAA issues scientific integrity policy

Abstract

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced the agency's first‐ever scientific integrity policy at a 7 December news briefing at the AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, Calif. The policy follows a December 2010 White House memorandum that issued guidance to federal agencies implementing scientific integrity policies (see “White House issues scientific integrity policies,” Eos Trans. AGU, 91(51), 503, doi:10.1029/2010EO510003, 2010). The purpose of the NOAA policy is “to promote a continuing culture of scientific excellence and integrity, and to establish a policy on the integrity of scientific activities that the agency conducts and uses to inform management and policy decisions,” the agency's administrative order states. “In addition, the intent of the policy is to strengthen widespread confidence—from scientists, to decisionmakers, to the general public—in the quality, validity, and reliability of NOAA science and to denote the agency's commitment to a culture of support for excellence of NOAA's principal science asset, its employees.”