Research Ethics and Integrity
The Focus Group Research Ethics and Integrity will share good practice in order to optimize the procedures in evaluation and management of ethical aspects. Sharing expertise connected with adoption of specific codes, rules, and policies related to research ethics is expected to change the culture of research and to incorporate ethical responsibility into protocol design and research projects implementation.
Main areas of interest and priorities of the Focus Group
1. Mapping ethics infrastructure among Alliance4Life members: review of internal guidelines and procedures at each institute. Research ethics committees and institutional RI officers use different approaches at each institution (retroactive vs. proactive approach). The group will discuss and share the procedures and rules applied at different institutions.
2. Education of early career researchers and students: Actions should be proposed that will change the perception of ethics as something abundant and ethics committees as “obstacles” to scientific activities. All members of FG agreed that one solution to this problem is education of young researchers and students.
- Courses on this topic should be introduced at the member institutions of the project; and
- Information about existing courses will be shared among member institutions.
3. Certification for animal research: due to different legislation in each country the certification is not always transferable and it is usually time limited and must be renewed after certain period. Differences and good practice will be identified and mutual acceptance of certifications among our countries will be suggested.
4. Clinical trials: there's a different approach in each country. Regulations will be discussed and compared among member countries.
5. Data protection
6. There is an increased demand of ethical approvals from editorial offices. Though it is not always clear for what types of research it is relevant to have ethical approval in
- Research using GMO;
- Animal research; and
- Human research.
FG2 will discuss the situation, find the areas relevant to all members and subsequently share experience in this area.
Focus Group Members
Focus Group Chair:
Renata Veselská
Focus Group Co-chair:
Eugenijus Gefenas
Members of the Focus Group:
Jan Širůček
Petra Lančová
Miroslav Vlček
Magdalena Kwaśniewska
Joanna Ruszkowska
Ana Borovečki
Ksenija Vitale
Katrin Velbaum
Margit Sutrop
Mari-Liisa Parder
Līga Zvejniece
Štefan Grosek
Zvonka Zupanič Slavec
Ágnes Dósa
Desislava Dimitrova
Magdalena Kasnakova
Velescu Bruno
Udeanu Denisa
Cristina Petcu