GENERAL INFORMATION G01. Description readme file: This readme file describes the anonymized data of the pilot study for the Ethics of research funding survey. G02. Dat of last update of this file: 31/7/2022 G03. Principal Investigator: Stijn Conix (stijn.conix AT kuleuven DOT be). G04. ORCID of Principal Investigator: 0000-0002-1487-0213 G05. Institution of Principal Investigator: KU Leuven G06. Contact of other person at KU Leuven that has access to the dataset: andreas DOT deblock AT kuleuven DOT be steven DOT depeuter AT kuleuven DOT be G07. Description of the dataset: This dataset was generated by a survey on the ethics of research funding. The survey consists of 5 main parts: - general demographic questions (questions starting with C) - questions for people who indicated they have applied for grants (questions starting with A) - questions for people who indicated they have peer reviewed grants (questions starting with R) - questions for people who indicated they have served as a panelist reviewing grants (questions starting with P) - additional general questions at the end of the survey G08. Keywords: Research Funding; Research Integrity; Ethics of Funding; G09. Thesaurus or controlled vocabulary keywords: / G10. Thesaurus or controlled vocabulary used in this README: / G11. Language(s) used in the dataset: English G12. Other involved researchers: Andreas De Block (KU Leuven), Steven De Peuter (KU Leuven), Krist Vaesen (Eindhoven University of Technology). PROJECT INFORMATION P01. Project information: This pilot study is part of a project on the ethics of research funding. It was preceded by a paper in F1000 on this topic (https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.73893.2) and will serve as the basis for a larger follow-up survey. P02. Project abstract: There has been a surge of interest for research integrity over the last decade, and there is now range of empirical studies that document the prevalence of serious misconduct as well as questionable research practices (Fanelli 2009, Gopalakrishna et al. 2021). While these studies typically cover research design, data collection and publication practices, funding and grant-reviewing practices have remained largely neglected. This is unfortunate, as these constitute an important part of researchers' activities and involve a large part of the academic community both in the role of reviewers and applicants. In addition, there is some tentative evidence that both applicants and reviewers do not always act in line with commonly accepted codes of conduct ( Anderson et al. 2007; Bouter et al. 2016; see also Conix, De Block, and Vaesen 2021). Examples of potential questionable practices related to research funding are: Applicants: Grants are written by postdocs but submitted by PIs; funding is requested based on work already done; improper use of funds and wasting grant money before the grant expires; applying for funding with work that is already funded. Peer reviewers and panelists: reviewers not disclosing a conflict of interest; reviewers reviewing grants outside their area of expertise; reviewers taking ideas from the grants they reviewed; reviewers presenting their evaluation with more confidence than they have; A systematic survey of both reviewers and applicants is necessary to understand if such practices are indeed prevalent, which are most pressing, and how research integrity could be improved in this context. The survey We plan to conduct an online survey to assess the prevalence of unethical practices related to research funding and some of their drivers. Our target population are applicants, reviewers and panelists, preferably contacted through funders with the double aim of 1) contacting the right people through a relevant organisation and 2) collecting anonymous responses. Because this is a first study, the survey is brief, should take approximately 10 minutes to complete and the research questions are exploratory. P03. Project funder: / FILE OVERVIEW F01. Number of files described by the README-file: 1 file. F02. List with names of files, description, date of creation of file: - ERF_pilot_data_anon.csv: created on 31/7/2022. The full anonymized dataset of the pilot study. - ERF_qualtrics_pilot.docx: created on 12/05/2022. The full export of the qualtrics survey used to generate the data. F03. File formats .csv file; .docx file F04. Software used to generate the data standard python packages like pandas (https://pandas.pydata.org/) were used to prepare the data for analysis. Qualtrics was used to make and distribute the survey. F05. Software necessary to open the file Any software that opens .csv files and .docx works to open the files. F06. Relationship between the files The ERF_qualtrics_pilot file describes the survey that was used to generate the data. F07. Which version of the dataset is this? Date of this version? This is the final version, as used for the analysis in the publication that describes this research. F08. Information about the dataset versions and reason for updates There is only one version of this dataset. F09. Naming conventions for file names All files related to the project start with ERF STORAGE INFORMATION S01. Where are the data stored? The data are stored on the protected OneDrive of the research project, the personal computer of the PI, and publicly available on zenodo. S02. Links to other available locations of the dataset (e.g. repository) Stored in Zenodo, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6945173 METHODOLOGICAL INFORMATION M01. Date (beginning-end) and place of data collection: All data was collected in between March 2022 and july 2022. M02. Aim for which the data were collected The data were collected to analyze the prevalence of violations of research integrity in the context of research funding. More precisely, the pilot served to generate hypotheses and finetune the survey for the main study. M03. Data collecting method The data was collected using a qualtrics survey (see file ERF_qualtrics_pilot) M04. Information about data processing methods Information about the geographical location of the participants was removed to ensure anonimity. M05. Information about the instrument, calibration The survey went through several iterations of feedback from colleagues before being sent out. The survey will be updated again for the main study. M06. Quality assurance procedures / M07. Information about limitations of the dataset, information that ensures correct interpretation of the dataset Participants were sampled from ERC panel members. This may procude a bias in the responses. The main study will sample from a broader population. M08. People involved in the creation or processing of the dataset DATA ACCESS AND SHARING A01. Recommended citation for the dataset Conix, S., Dataset for "Survey on the Ethics of Research Funding: Pilot Study", 2021, Zenodo, version 1, 10.5281/zenodo.6945173. A02. License information, restrictions on use CC BY 4.0. A03. Confidentiality information / DATA SPECIFIC INFORMATION (ABOUT THE DATA THEMSELVES) D01. Full names and definitions for columns and rows ERF_pilot_data_anon.csv: There are 139 rows, each corresponding to a unique respondent. These are the columns: ResponseId C1, C2, C3, C5,C6,C7,C8: general demographic questions. For the content of each question, check the file ERF_qualtrics_pilot.docx C4,C4_1,C4_2, C4_3,C4_4,C4_5,C4_4_TEXT: responses for the question about gender, either 1 or 0 for each of the gender-options. 'C4' summarizes the other columns using various categories. reviewer: column indicating whether the respondent served as a reviewer of grant applications panelist: column indicating whether the respondent served as a panelist applicant: column indicating whether the respondent has applied for grants. A1 - A20: questions for applicants (those with a '1' in applicant). For the content of each question, check the file ERF_qualtrics_pilot.docx R1, R3 - R8: questions for reviewers (those with a '1' in reviewer) R2_indicate, R2_decline, R2_limit_judg, R2_readup, R2_limit_scope, R2_charitable,R2_nothing, R2_other, R2_8_TEXT,R2: reviewer question asking what they do when they are uncertain. Dummy columns for all options=; P1 - P6: questions for panelists. For the content of each question, check the file ERF_qualtrics_pilot.docx CoI_friend, CoI_acquainted, CoI_coauthor, CoI_excolleague, CoI_conferencefriend, CoI_disliked, CoI_superior, CoI: question about what counts as conflict of interest. Everyone gets this question. For the content of each question, check the file ERF_qualtrics_pilot.docx D02. Explanation of abbreviations / D03. Units of measurement / D04. Symbols for missing data empty cells RELATIONSHIPS R01. Publications based on this dataset ADD LATER R02. This dataset derives from… (other dataset) / R03. This dataset is related to… (documents, dataset) / R04. References of publications used to create the datasets