In the United States, the Office of Research Integrity and the National Science Foundation both impose legal sanctions for scientific fraud in publicly funded research. The European Commission has no equivalent measures in place. Strict regulations and policy procedures to combat misconduct (see, for example, go.nature.com/a1znzb) are needed before Europe's ambitious Horizon 2020 research-funding programme is introduced in 2014 (Nature 478, 16; 2011 ).

At present, the programme contains no provision for scientific misconduct. Even the guidelines of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity make no detailed recommendations for dealing with fraudulent research (see go.nature.com/juubnq).

Under the Horizon 2020 proposals, grant applicants should sign an ethics declaration confirming that they abide by the European Code of Conduct and will cooperate in and support investigation into suspected violations and alleged misconduct.

Creation of a European agency for research integrity would guarantee that any work funded by Horizon 2020 meets explicit standards. For example, misconduct investigations could be carried out by agency ombudsmen and by ad hoc research-integrity committees, based on the ethics review panels of the current Seventh Framework Programme for research. The agency would listen to whistleblowers and take over investigations impeded by institutional reluctance or by unmanageable conflicts of interest. It could also bar institutions from receiving future grants from the European Commission if they failed to cooperate.