As part of the educational program of a consortium of European universities (ECIU, European Consortium of Innovative Universities – eciu.eu), INSA Lyon offered a “challenge-based learning” on academic integrity, titled “Rethinking Professional Ethics: Deconstruct and Reconstruct Your Approach”.

Challenge-based learning promotes a proactive attitude among students throughout the course. The facilitator, called a Teamcher, plays a role somewhere between that of a teacher, in terms of sharing knowledge, and a mentor, in terms of motivating students to engage with a question. The three phases of a challenge start with investigation. The Teamcher encourages students to look at an issue as thoroughly as possible and guides their analysis activities using different educational resources. Students make the problem their own by identifying key points in their own context. Finally, there comes a phase where students produce work related to a question, a context, and possible solutions.

“Rethinking Professional Ethics: Deconstruct and Reconstruct Your Approach” aims to help students take ownership of the key concepts of scientific integrity, grounded in ethics and professional conduct, and develop their own code of conduct in relation to their professional environment. Every field—whether scientific, technical, legal, social, or creative—is now shaped by the rapid digitalization of society. The spread of fragmented information, the influence of social media, and the politicization of facts challenge our ideas of evidence and what is considered common knowledge. This has a profound impact on how we define and apply professional integrity.

In this new context, traditional frameworks like codes of ethics, professional conduct, and scientific integrity are under increasing pressure. Misconduct is harder to spot, and professional responsibility is becoming more and more complex. So, it is important for each student to develop their own approach to ethics that they can rely on in their future professional roles. This challenge encourages taking a critical look at the roles of ethics and integrity in one’s own field. Students are prompted to explore how values are shaped, twisted, or defended in a constantly changing world, and to start building their own reflective and adaptable approach to ethical decision-making.

Through case studies drawn from real-life situations, testimonials and expert analyses, as well as interactive activities, the student is invited to acquire the tools needed to assess the consequences of their actions. Ultimately, they will contribute to a more responsible professional culture by developing their own personalized ethical framework, capable of responding to a complex and concerning global context. The productive part of the challenge was offered by the Institute for Research and Action on Academic Fraud and Plagiarism (IRAFPA, irafpa.org).

The challenge includes a set of online and in-person activities, combining expert interventions, case study discussions, reading materials, and interactive role-playing games. 15 MSc students from 4 different universities took part in the 5 videoconference sessions (two sessions in March 2026, three sessions in April 2026), and 11 of them attended the mobility week on the Lyon La Doua campus in person (from 06/29 to 07/03/26). During the mobility week, with the presence of IRAFPA, the students created an individual 180-second video on a question of their own related to scientific integrity. The students’ feedback is very positive regarding the content, but they made recommendations to improve several technical details. The training will be offered again in 2027.

Prof. Bruno Allard

Bruno.Allard@insa-lyon.fr

INSA Lyon