To ensure an ethically responsible research practice, employees and students can startresearch with human beings only after their research proposal has been ethically assessed.
Procedure #
If you plan to do research with human subjects you have to submit your proposal for ethical assessment. This is in principle for all intended research within the faculty of Behavioral Science involving humans in an indirect (i.e. file or social media research) or direct manner (i.e. experiments, surveys, interviews). You can only start the research after you gained ethical approval. The BMS Ethics Committee will assess whether the research proposed conforms to ethical standards. This applies to all research that is conducted by BMS staff, PhD’s, postdocs and students, regardless of where it is conducted. This means that even if the organization where you plan to do your research does not require any ethical approval, you still have to submit your research for approval of the BMS EC. If research is conducted by students or trainees, the supervising staff member bears the ultimate responsibility (because there needs to be an employment relationship with the University).
For more information check Ethics committee BMS. Students and staff member not part of the BMS faculty should read the next section.
Not a BMS faculty student or staff member? Keep reading. #
When to apply at the BMS faculty ethics board? #
Are you a student from a BMS faculty bachelor/master program you can submit your research for ethical review to the BMS Ethics Committee. Also if your supervisors are from one of the departments of faculty BMS and your educational program is not from BMS you are still allowed to submit to BMS Ethics Committee. Furthermore, are your supervisors from another faculty, but the educational program from BMS, then submission to BMS Ethics Committee is also advised. Hence, if your Bachelor or Master is at the faculty EEMCS (EWI), ET or TNW, with supervisors of EWI/EEMCS or ET faculty and no supervisor from BMS is involved than you need to submit your research to EEMCS/EWI Ethics Committee or the Natural Sciences and Engineering Sciences Ethics Committee when you are from ET/TNW.
ITC staff and ATLAS students (if their supervisor is not from BMS) have to submit with ITC Ethics Committee.