The Code of University Ethics and Deontology (abbreviated CcEDU) announced in the Law on Higher Education 199/2023 was put up for public discussion on January 26.

We learn from the law that this is the work of an advisory commission of the ministry called CNEMU: National Commission for the Ethics of University Management. I am looking for something about CNEMU. The edu.ro website has information from 2017 when it was founded and when it did not have a “national” degree. CNEMU does not have a functional website. At the address Whyro 2021 is the latest, among the few phrases as public information. Worse still, Law 1/2011 still appears on the website as a reference act. The law was repealed by the new Law on Higher Education 199/2023. Even when it was called CEMU, the site was either down or out of date at the time.

What does “frame code” mean? Interpretations, philological, but primarily legal, differ: however, it seems to be a Code placed in a legislative field. But the Code can be a legislative act, not only a normative one. And so it is, because – we don’t know why, because no one has explained yet – it will be approved by a Government Decree. The Ministry was not enough. Likewise, the Ministry must approve the Codes of University Ethics. The university senate was not enough. Centralization and the need for control and monitoring are already obvious. Structure hierarchical, ruling, order It seems that the only legal paradigm of the education system is the only legal paradigm in which the decision-makers see the educational act, its professionals, its beneficiaries.

CcEDU covers two areas that have something in common, but also something specific: ethics, respectively, deontology. Most often, they are mixed in this proposal, so it is repeatedly difficult, especially for those who are not in the habit of reading such documents, to evaluate the effectiveness of the provisions in the text. The tongue, wooden, does not help much.

In the Explanatory Note accompanying the draft, we find on page 1 that “the provisions… provide…”. On page 2 we are told about “actors involved in university ethical processes“. I emphasize: again, in official documents, the abuse of the term “actor”, which casts a strange halo on the artistic profession, must stop. Because we must, as a result, use related terms: director, stage, scenery, text, prompter, etc. Why a formal, serious text won’t do. The wording (really: what does that mean?) “ethical processes” is vague. We don’t know. The same page talks about “increasing the confidence of actors involved in the educational act”. Besides the annoying misuse of the word “actor”, we’re missing the point here: to trust what? We don’t know. But on page 3, in point 3.2., something really worrisome appears: the social impact of the new Framework Code is reserved only for academic communities. The one who thought/wrote this, doesn’t realize that the societal impact is much greater when it comes to bad behavior, intellectual theft, undermining the credibility of science, etc. But maybe that’s asking too much.

Now let’s take a closer look at the framework.

The first thing that catches the eye in Article 7 is that the Framework Regulation on the University Ethics Commission is approved by the Ministry of Education. why Why not the Senate as the highest governing body of the university? The logic of the legal/administrative act would justify this, as the CcEDU itself must be approved by a Government Decision (GD).

The desire of decision-makers to authoritarian centralize education is reflected only by this example: the code of ethics is an attribute of the community, here the university, which is accredited by law, including the Constitution, to develop its service to society by applying in practice what it knows, to do what what is best: exploring and communicating what is fundamental to the world today and tomorrow. Why could the university itself not approve its own Code of Ethics? Because – we will see right away – there would be weak and few mechanisms a system of checks and balances in case of skidding?

But a surprise! These mechanisms, devices or national councils they are, for the most part, stripped down, nicely polished in the bureaucratic language of shells. From the provisions of the new Framework Code, we clearly see not only that the court that had its own special role, the National Board of Ethics, now remains in the court of the Ministry of Research. Now we can clearly see how Edupedu has already documented that CNATDCU is not fulfilling its important responsibilities regarding PhD thesis plagiarism. Excluding provisions regarding self report, CcEDU seriously amputates the social mission of the university. University ethics committees can now be legally blind: even if the media reports, analyzes, exposes academic plagiarism or other forms of lack of ethics and integrity, the committees can be appeased. No May that’s their job.

CcEDU has articles with redundant content, such as Article 14, Article 16, Article 17 or, in Title IV, Article 26, when dealing with violations. Some of their formulations easily cause laughter due to a verbal cliché devoid of content. For example, deviations include those “which violates protection of rights…” (letter “a”) or those “which encroach dignity…” (lit. “b”). How will any commission analyze “injury” and “disability”? The document repeats the provisions, although they are in the Law on Higher Education. (see Section 6 for incompatibilities). Editorial carelessness is also found in art. 14, where the repeated line, from “a” to “f”, could be kept short. This article also creates a novelty in that it establishes norms of ethics and deontology for different categories of people and different categories of activities, as if they are traded according to status: teacher, student, administrative staff, management, etc. In alphabetical order, these ethical and deontological norms of the Framework Code include… norms of teaching and scientific activity; in the activities of communication, publication, dissemination and scientific popularization; when performing the duties of management functions; regarding respect for a person and his dignity; applies to students, doctoral students, postdoctoral researchers and other categories; inherent in the canonical and dogmatic principles of the respective cult, which do not contradict the above-mentioned norms (!). They are all posted here in this Article 14, whether or not they are related to this CcEDU.

It seems to me that Art. 29, par. 2, where the listed sanctions apply to different categories not only as a status, but also as an author of academic “crimes”: you have the same sanctions for an undergraduate student as for a PhD student or postdoc! The lack of differentiation, taking into account the seriousness and typology of academic offences, as noted by IRAFPA (www.irafpa.org), for example, which also offers a reliable method of analysis, will create problems for ethics committees.

Finally, let me also draw attention to an addendum to this CcEDU entitled “Collection of Reference Standards for University Ethics and Deontology in University Administration.” Here it can be seen that the one who “designed” the text does not know what “purpose” means, confusing it with types of activities. The appendix is ​​a table with three columns: Standards, Performance Indicators, Risks. When you try to understand why the standard is expressed by an indicator called “objective”, something is wrong. When, instead of brevity, we have narratives that begin, in fact, in the style of events, with “establishment…” etc., then it is clear that the bureaucratic, sometimes prejudiced mentality (an old language, well!) emerges without shame.

Therefore, the Complex has only one “general goal”: “Increasing the degree of implementation of integrity measures at the level (sic!) of a higher educational institution.” It can be achieved through four “specific objectives”: the Foundational Principles; Relations with the academic community; resource management; Reporting and Compliance. Each specific goal offers standards, metrics and risks. Addendum, as they say, to Article 25, at the service of CNEMU. How, by the waythe entire Framework, as provided by the Law on Higher Education in Article 154, paragraph 5, letter “d”. About CNEMU, we have seen how operational it is. The law grants CNEMU, see Art. 154, paragraph 2, Register of experts appointed, of course, by the minister, but also through consultation with the National Council of Rectors. When appointing participants, three criteria are taken into account: competence (in what?), “willingness to become more active”, ethically clean academic resume. The role of these experts is twofold: when they offer a technical point of view regarding the conflict of interest of some members of the commission, when they offer “specific expertise” when “this need has been identified in national commissions.” As we know, defining a need is not… easy. Especially when she doesn’t need to be identified.

Whoever worked on this proposal knows little about ethics in general, ethics and academic deontology in particular. This is a document type created for bookmarking. Because he “does not see” actually scientific and research life, distortions of interpersonal or authoritative relations. It mixes different levels of concepts, terms and concepts that are not clear in the context of the relevant paragraphs. Read the rest of the article on Contributors.ro