The founding of the Committee

The Founding of the Committee

The European Mathematical Society Ethics Committee was created by the Executive Committee of the European Mathematical Society in the spring of 2010.

The first task of the Ethics Committee was to prepare a Code of Practice. The Code was approved by the Executive Committee of the European Mathematical Society on October 29, 2012, on the recommendation of the Council of the European Mathematical Society, and came into effect on November 1, 2012.

The Code emphasises ethical aspects of publication, dissemination, and assessment of mathematics. The European Mathematical Society considers the successful open and transparent publication and dissemination of mathematical research to be of the greatest importance for the future of our subject. Unethical behaviour in publication and dissemination contaminates and jeopardises the integrity and expansion of mathematics, and could have serious consequences for individuals.

The original remit

The remit of the European Mathematical Society Ethics Committee was specified by the Executive Committee of the European Mathematical Society in Spring 2010, as follows. The Ethics Committee will focus on unethical behaviour in mathematical publications. This includes, for example, plagiarism, duplicate publication, inadequate citations, inflated self citations, dishonest refereeing, and other violations of the professional code. The Committee will be responsible for the following three tasks:

  1. To raise the awareness of the problem by preparing a code of practice.
  2. To encourage journals and publishers to respond to allegations of unethical behaviour in a conscientious way.
  3. To provide a mechanism whereby researchers can ask the Committee to help them pursue claims of unethical behaviour.

The Committee may take up any other relevant questions related to ethics in connection with its work.

The list of inaugural members of the Committee

The initial membership of the European Mathematical Society Ethics Committee was as follows. All members were appointed for three years, from mid-2010 to mid-2013. Members serve on the Committee as individuals, and not as representatives of their institution, mathematical society, or country.

Chair: Arne Jensen (Aalborg Universitet, Denmark)

Vice-Chair: H. Garth Dales (University of Lancaster, UK)

Executive Committee representative:

Igor Krichever (Columbia University, New York, USA, and Landau Institute of Theoretical Physics, Moscow, Russia), 2010–2012

Franco Brezzi (Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori, Pavia, Italy. since 2013

Members:

Jean-Paul Allouche (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France)

Graziano Gentili (Università di Firenze, Italy)

Radu Gologan (Academia Română de Științe, București, Romania)

Christine Jacob (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Jouy-en-Josas, France)

Adolfo Quirós (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain)

Tomaž Pisanski (Univerzita v Ljubljani, Slovenia)

Tatiana Shaposhnikova (Linköpings Universitet, Sweden)

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