R&D Policies

This research policy will be applicable to all the research activities undertaken under the roof of BVDU CON, Sangli as a constituent unit of Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University), Pune which may include all the faculty and their respective departments and registered students for UG, PG courses and PhD Scholars every course which is carrying the research projects under the curriculum prescribed by the apex bodies such as University & Indian Nursing Council. The research projects which are either funded or otherwise within/outside University premises also would follow the policy document. The research policy also pertains to a wider strategic interests of the Institute/University including partnerships, collaborations, Clinical trials and MoU's.

Aims of the Policy

• Provide a guideline for the conductance and publication of the research work.
• Define and prioritize the areas for research to be conducted in the institute.
• Provide essential infrastructure support for the research work.
• Establish rational, transparent, merit based decision-making systems for the allocation of financial and other support for research.
• Promote the quality research and motivate the faculty members.
• Integrate postgraduate research into the main research systems and provide the necessary facilities.

The implementation and updating of Research Policy shall be carried out by the Director of Research, Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University), Pune and Principal, BVDU CON, Sangli. The Research Policy will function under the direct supervision of the Director of Research and Head of the Institute BVDU CON, Sangli.

The faculty involved as research coordinators (Faculty in-charge ) of the UG, PG courses and PhD scholars, Secretaries of RRC & IEC of the institute are responsible for the conduct of the research that is undertaken in their jurisdiction. They will ensure that all researchers are applying to the ethics review procedures for research activities that involve human participants, personal data or human tissue, in line with the RRC Guidelines, SOP’s of IEC of college/ICMR Guidelines, and the University’s Ethics Policy, governing the research involving human participants, personal data and human tissue. They will also be responsible for ensuring that all staff and students engaging in research are familiar with the content of the Policy and that appropriate training and guidance is made available.

1. RRC

• Principal – Chairperson
• Research Subject In charge – Coordinator
• Medical Professional Expert- Member
• Statistician- Member
• Eminent experts from outside the University

The RRC will meet once in a year to review research progress, offer critical comments, and suggest remedial processes to augment the research activities of the University. The ‘Term’ of the RRC, once constituted, will be for a period of Three (3) years after which the same members may be continued for another term.

• BVDU CON, Sangli aspires to be one of the top Nursing institute in the District, State, Country and world at large by contributing to dynamic and high-quality Nursing Education, Healthcare, and Biomedical Transformational Research there by bringing the social transformation.
• The institute aims to enhance the research profile of the college by effective dissemination of research activities and achievements of the institute at all levels to maximize the impact and recognition of research done at Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University), Pune at national and international levels. It also determines to advance and facilitate interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary relationships by connecting with other constituent units of the University, research institutions and industries across pan India.
• The research should be at par with the institutional interest by keeping University in front. It should aim at the development of research and analytical abilities, identification of social needs and its solutions related to the issues of social, behavioral, financial and health problems of the citizens in the region, the research carried within the institute should contribute to the health outcomes of the community both local and global.
• Maintain and enhance the quality of research undertaken by Creating transparent, effective, and efficient systems for maximizing research outputs.
• Utilize the new knowledge, innovations, technologies, and tools emerging out of research conducted under the roof of BVDU CON, Sangli into practice for commercialization or for societal benefit; Protect Intellectual Property (IP) generated as a result of research conducted.
• Encourage and facilitate research collaborations within different Institutes of the University along with reputed Institutes, Universities and Research Organizations both in India and abroad.
• Ensure effective dissemination of research activities and achievements of the University both internally and externally.

The Research projects undertaken should preferably fall under the thrust areas of the Institute /University.

• The overall management of research activities will be supervised by Principal, BVDU CON, Sangli.
• UG, PG, PhD Research Coordinators, Secretaries of Review Committee, Institutional Ethics Committee and administrative committee shall be responsible for overall functioning of research activities within the Institute.
• Each Institution research activities will be coordinated by the research coordinators of respective courses and their committees there of.

Faculty

Faculty members of BVDU CON, Sangli are expected to undertake research, leading to quality publications, presentations in National/International conferences of repute, generation of Intellectual property with potential for commercialization, socially useful outcome and other similar research activity. Research output will be considered one of the criteria for faculty recruitment and promotion along with other academic responsibilities. All faculty should know the contents of the policy, follow the guidelines and apply for ethical approval to be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee.

The ethical conduct of nursing research is essential for those working functioning in all the departments, particularly for researchers involved with clinical based and community-based research activities. Research should avoid causing harm, distress, anxiety, pain or any other negative feeling to participants. All the research activities of the institute must abide by the SOP and policies laid by the IEC of the college.

The institute has in Place the Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) as per ICMR Guidelines which reviews the ethics of all nursing research involving human participants, tissue and data also and monitor the ethics review measures in the research activities undertaken by the individual faculty, departmental as well as the students research studies including faculty research, Industry Sponsored Clinical Trial, Collaborative research etc.

It will also dynamically promote the knowledge and awareness of research ethics and the policy thereof by conducting training and other academic events. The committee can offer advice on any research ethical matters that are referred to the committee and look into matters of research misconduct within the University. It will ensure recognition of the IEC by recognized bodies. The details of the Composition and Function is attached.

The university has several schemes under which financial assistance is being given to undertake and promote Research and Innovation activities :

Capacity Building

With the prior intimation and the formal approval from University; the BVDU CON, Sangli provides financial assistance to conduct Conference, Seminars, workshops, Symposia and Continued Nursing Educations (CNEs) on Research Methodology, Good Clinical Practice (GCP), Writing Research Report, Publication Ethics and similar topics deemed necessary. Publication and Peer review, Grant writing, IPR and Patenting, awareness of academic misconduct like plagiarism for promoting and improving the quality of research.

Research Collaborations

Researchers are promoted to engage in collaborative research with the inter departments, other constituent institutions of Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed to be University), Pune. This could be inter-departmental/ inter-institutional or international and also multi center involving public and/or private research centers and agencies.

Collaborative R&I ranges from international projects, potentially involving institutions from countries both in the developing and developed world, to mid-range collaborations involving several institutions within one country, through to projects involving two researchers from different disciplines. Collaboration includes R&I projects between researchers from different disciplines in the University, and R&I projects between the University and other institutions in India and/or in other countries.

The main ethical issues surrounding collaborations pertain to sharing techniques, ownership of materials and data, IPRs, joint publications, managing research findings, managing COI and commercializing research outcomes. All these issues must be addressed by collaborating Institutes/investigators through a contract or MOU.

Researchers should familiarize themselves with all aspects including local, national, and international requirements for research collaboration including necessary approvals, memorandums of understanding (MoUs) and material transfer agreements (MTA) and IEC approval of collaborating institutes.

Regulatory Aspects

• Research being conducted in alliance with industries/ commercial companies will strongly review the possible COI between scientific responsibilities of researchers and business interests at the beginning. The Standard Operating procedure of Institutional Ethics committee and Site management Office will be strictly adhered to that will help the Self-regulatory processes to monitor, prevent and resolve conflicts of interest.
• The investigators shall declare conflicts of interest (financial interests, consulting fees or honorarium per participant, intellectual property rights from patents, copyrights, and royalties from such rights, etc.) in the application submitted to IEC for review. IEC members would declare the conflict of Interest before the review of the proposal and refrain from the deliberations and decision making on the specific proposal.
• A declaration of a conflict of interest, with a brief written record of that declaration, will suffice in most situations. Sometimes, may require modification of the project’s plan.

BVDU CON, Sangli regards the effective management of the data generated by research projects as an essential part of good research and innovation practice. It has the following steps undertaken for data management :

• Exploiting the impact of data-intensive research.
• Assurance of research integrity.
• Enhanced data protection and storage and minimizing the risk of data loss.
• Enablement of data sharing and collaboration.
• Open access principle to publicly funded research outputs.
• Compliance with the requirements of research funders.
• The primary responsibility for effective research data management during the course of research projects lies with Principal Investigators. However, all researchers, including postgraduate and undergraduate students undertaking research, have a personal responsibility to effectively manage the data they create.
• All research proposals for funded research shall include a data management plan. This will help to ensure that research data management is be considered at every stage of a research project, from the initial proposal and research costing, through to provision for long-term data curation.
• Data protection and storage is important and once collected, data must be properly protected, as it may be needed at a later stage to confirm research findings, establish priority, or be re-analyzed by other researchers. Responsible data handling begins with proper storage and protection from accidental damage, loss or theft.
• Care should be taken to reduce the risk of fire, flood and other catastrophic events. Computer files should be backed-up and the back-up data saved in a secure place at a site that is different from the original data storage site. Data sharing is important as research data is valuable and needs to be shared but deciding when and with whom to share may raise difficult questions. Once a researcher has published the results of an experiment, it is generally expected that all the information about that experiment, including the final data, should be freely available for other researchers to check and use.
• Data should be shared or placed in a public domain in a de-identified/anonymized form, unless required otherwise, for which applicable permissions/re-consent should be sought unless obtained beforehand.

Responsible Authorship and Publication

• Completed research must be published, institute websites or other available relevant platforms.
• Plagiarism or any form of research misconduct is unethical and will be strictly avoided The research misconduct includes self-plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, manipulation of data or images/digital image/use of unreliable or duplicate images, exaggeration on part of results and interpretation, use of wrong statistical tools, gift/ghost authorship etc.
• Researcher must ensure authenticity of research results before publishing or disseminating information out of the Institution.
• Researchers should ensure substantial intellectual role of all authors who are included in the publication or presentation.
• Ghost authorship and gifted authorship are not allowed, and contributions of all authors should be clearly identified, collaborations if any, may be declared preferably at the time of project initiation or when the collaboration evolves during conduct of research, with the name and details of collaborators stated.
• Role of all authors should be clearly identified/justified. Authorship should be duly given to all those who have substantially scientifically contributed to the research and may include permanent as well as contractual / temporary staff
• All sources, materials and methods used to obtain and analyze research data should be explained clearly in the publication. Any potential or real conflicts of interest should be declared in the publication
• The Research data and results should be checked rigorously for their integrity before being published and/or communicated with the public. Before publication or dissemination, the researcher/corresponding author should submit the final draft along with details of authorship and plagiarism check report to the Publication Review committee for approval where it will be reviewed regarding misconduct before giving approval (15 days).
• The research documents with acceptable level of plagiarism (≤10%) or without identified misconduct shall be permitted for before publication/dissemination.

Research misconduct will involve fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism of data, that are serious issues both nationally and internationally. As per the University directions, the initiate has adopted the definitions of research misconduct set out by UNIVERSITY GRANTS COMMISSION (PROMOTION OF ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND PREVENTION OF PLAGIARISM IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS) REGULATIONS, 2018.

Policy on Research Misconduct

In align with the university guidelines the institute considers any allegation of research misconduct to be a matter of great concern and will investigate any such allegation fully. Given its reputation and status, the University has a responsibility to the research community and to the public at large.

Research misconduct, if suspected, at university level it will be investigated. If facts are not presented accurately, Institution will investigate all allegations of misconduct as present or future participants’ lives may be endangered. Such investigations will be done in a timely, fair and transparent manner and the results will be made available in the public domain wherever appropriate.

With consultation of the university the institute will review and amend the current policy every three years for inclusion of latest developments and revisions as per National and International Guidelines.

• National Ethical Guidelines for biomedical and health research involving human participants – Indian council of medical research 2017. https://www.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/guidelines/ICMR_Ethical_Guidelines_2017.pdf
• National Ethical Guidelines for biomedical and health research involving human participants – Indian council of medical research 2018 https://naitik.gov.in/DHR/resources/app_­srv/DHR/global/pdf/downloads/Handbook_on­_ICMR_Ethical_Guidelines.pdf
• ICMR Policy on research Integrity and Publication ethics (2019) : https://www.icmr.nic.in/sites/default/files/upload_documents/ICMR_policy_ripe.pdf
• National Guidelines for Ethics Committees Reviewing Biomedical and Health Research During COVID-19 Pandemic guidelines 2020,https://www.icmr.gov.in/pdf/covid/techdoc/EC_Guidance_COVID19_06052020.pdf
• COPE Guidelines- Good Publication Practices (2000): https://publicationethics.org/files/u7141/1999pdf13.pdf
• COPE Guidelines- How to handle authorship issues for new researchers 2018: ZX 89Q122 https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2018.1.1
• The US Office of Research Integrity, Introduction to the responsible conduct of research (2007)
• WHO Code of conduct for responsible research (2017): https://www.who.int/about/ethics/code-ofconduct-responsible-research.pdf
• UGC Guidelines for “Promoting and Improving the Quality of Research in Indian Universities” (2019): https://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/5816125_Promoting-and-Improving.pdf
• The UK Research Integrity Office, Code of Practice for Research: promoting good practice and preventing misconduct (2009)