Submitting a complaint to the Academic Integrity Committee

Have you decided to submit a complaint to the Scientific Integrity Committee? If so, it is important to know that doing so will not have any adverse consequences for you or for others involved in the procedure, such as witnesses and experts. You can find more information in the Academic Integrity Complaints Regulations. The complaints procedure consists of the following steps:

1. You decide to submit a complaint

If you think that research integrity has been breached by one or more researchers affiliated with the University of Amsterdam, you can submit a complaint to the Scientific  Integrity Committee (SIC). The confidential adviser for research integrity can help you to formulate and substantiate the complaint. If the SIC considers the submitted complaint to be insufficiently concrete or substantiated, you will be given the opportunity to review and to resubmit a modified complaint.

The complaint as well as all documents that are part of the SIC procedure will be provided to both parties (complainant and respondent). The SIC procedure is confidential: the parties are not allowed to discuss the procedure with others, and all information they receive through and throughout the SIC procedure must be kept confidential.

You can read more about the whole process in the Academic Integrity Complaints Regulations.

2. The Scientific Integrity Committee assesses whether the complaint is admissible

The SIC will inform you about the admissibility of the complaint within three weeks of receiving it.

If the complaint is not admissible for example because the description of the alleged misconduct is not clear, it is already under consideration by another body, the suspected misconduct took place too long ago, or the subject of the complaint falls outside the scope of the SIC  you can discuss alternative ways to proceed with the confidential adviser for academic integrity

3. An investigation starts

If your complaint is admissible, the committee will proceed to gather information, may consult with witnesses or experts, and will speak with all parties involved. If a committee member is personally involved in the matter, (s)he will not participate in the investigation.

4. The committee sends its recommendation to the Executive Board

Once the investigation has been completed, the committee submits its findings and recommendations to the Executive Board (CvB) of the UvA. Within four weeks of receiving this recommendation, the Executive Board will inform both the complainant and the respondent in writing of its decision.

5. Publication of the recommendation

Once the procedure has concluded, the committee’s recommendation and the Executive Board’s decision will be published anonymously. These can be found on the website of the umbrella organisation Universities of the Netherlands. You ead more about it in the Academic Integrity Complaints Regulations.

Overview of recommendations

The annual reports of the Academic Integrity Committee provide a brief overview of the complaints on which the committee has issued a recommendation to the Executive Board. View the annual report  for 2024 (PDF, 11 p.p.), the annual report  for 2021–2023 (PDF, 10 p.p.), the annual report for 2020 (PDF, 5 p.p.) and the annual report for 2019 (PDF, 6 p.p.). The reports are in Dutch.

Contact

The Academic Integrity Committee of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) consists of Prof. Dr M.Y.A. Zieck (Chair), Prof. Dr N. Zelcer and Prof. Dr F.J. Oort. You can contact the committee via wi-jz@uva.nl or by telephone on +31(0)20 525 2736.