Legislative Leadership in the Academic Integrity Space

There have been responses to the challenges of academic integrity from several fronts over decades. Institutions have introduced policies, procedures, and education for both staff and students around working ethically in educational contexts. Students have also advocated the promotion of integrity in all facets of higher education – whether academic studies or research. Additionally, governments and national or international bodies have demonstrated leadership in the academic integrity space. This chapter explores leadership shown in the global legislative arena to promote, encourage, and inform academic integrity. We have taken the term “leadership” in this chapter to mean: governments listening to broad input, recognizing there is a serious issue to resolve, making a considered response to the issue, and providing options to those involved. In the legislative space, once all stakeholders have worked through the issues, courage is needed to recognize if avenues pursued are not working and if/when national or international legislation can form part of the solution. We are not advocating that legislation is needed in every situation, nor is it a panacea and should not be rushed through governments as a hopeful quick-fix response. What we propose is that legislation can form part of the multitude of approaches to heighten and support academic integrity in the educational domain. We outline legislative interventions across several international settings and detail how legislation was enacted in three settings, to contrast leadership approaches. We also describe outcomes where legislative intervention has been implemented through courts to uphold academic integrity values.