After decades of quiet debate across the sciences, the University of Toronto’s Institute of Medical Science has instituted a Hippocratic Oath for graduate students in the life sciences. New students first took the oath last fall, pledging (among other things) “never to allow financial gain, competitiveness, or ambition to cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship.”

In a letter in last week’s issue of the journal Science, Karen D. Davis, the graduate coordinator at Toronto’s institute, and three colleagues argue that such an oath should be a requirement for graduate programs in the life sciences, to help promote scientific ethics.

“There is the perception,” they write, “that current students take plagiarism, misrepresentation of facts, and scientific fraud less gravely than did previous generations of scientists.”

Toronto’s efforts come in the context of universities’ struggle to imbue their students with ethical norms. Some institutions are, like Toronto, requiring their students to take courses in scientific ethics.

In the new oath, students affirm their pride in belonging to the research community, their integrity in research conduct, and their pursuit of “knowledge for the greater good.” Unlike some of the pledges proposed over the years, Toronto’s does not mention abstaining from research on weapons or other projects viewed by some as socially or environmentally destructive. —Lila Guterman