BSEE is committed to an enduring culture of scientific and scholarly integrity. Our mission of safety, environmental protection, and resource conservation requires us to understand the latest advances impacting the offshore energy industry. In pursuit of its mission, BSEE oversees studies and partners with scientific committees, other federal agencies, and academics to ensure that our decisions incorporate these advances in scientific and technical understandings. Scientific integrity is critical to ensuring sound decisions and maintaining the public’s trust. "Scientific integrity is the adherence to professional practices, ethical behavior, and the principles of honesty and objectivity when conducting, managing, using the results of, and communicating about science and scientific activities. Inclusivity, transparency, and protection from inappropriate influence are hallmarks of scientific integrity". Examples of activities or acts leading to losses of scientific integrity include, but are not limited to, fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, etc.
Scientific integrity is vital to Department of the Interior (DOI) activities under which scientific research, data, summaries, syntheses, interpretations, presentations, and/or publications are developed and used. Failure to uphold the highest degree of scientific integrity will result not only in potentially flawed scientific results, interpretations, and applications but will damage DOI’s reputation and ability to uphold the public’s trust. The policy applies to all DOI employees, including political appointees, as well as, contractors, cooperators, partners, permittees, leasees, grantees, and volunteers, when they engage in, supervise, manage, or influence scientific and scholarly activities, or communicate information about the Department"s scientific and scholarly activities, or utilize scientific and scholarly information in making agency policy, management or regulatory decisions.