Dr. Jan Jans
(jan.jans@uvt.nl)
Associate Professor of Ethics
Academic Secretary Research Ethics
and Data Management Committee
(retired since October 2020)
How the ‘Research Ethics Committee’ is Going to
Destroy Your Research – Or Maybe Not*
Context: retraction of highly considered publications because of major integrity breaches ~ personal
and institutional reputation damage → implement “ethical review” of research proposals.
Research Ethics Committee: (inter)national legal requirements and Dutch internal regulations =>
‘push’ & ‘pull’ factors as focal points for understanding how ethics review enhances the academy
° Push factors: Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (2004 – revised 2018); European
Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR 2016 – implemented 2018); Ethical Clearance
requested by academic publishers; occasional but high profile scandals…
° Pull factors: awareness of collegial attention to ethical practices in providing information and obtaining
informed consent from participants; non-hegemonic relation between principal investigators and
members of research team; attractive formation materials such as www.path2integrity.eu or
www.embassy.science/wiki
Observations ~ work in progress
- The process of obtaining ethical clearance is not a matter of
‘going through the motions’ of ticking boxes on a form but
requires genuine reflection on the values and the possible risks
of the research including the choices on methodology for data
gathering (questionnaire, observation, interview, experiment… –
including ‘deception’).
- The Research Ethics Committee (REC) does not provide a
template for an information letter nor for the informed consent:
researchers are themselves responsible for the quality of these
documents which is monitored by the academic secretary.
- The standards for data management to implement FAIR
(Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability) and the
GDPR requirement with regard to the minimisation of personal
data are mandatory.
- Ethical clearance cannot be obtained post hoc; REC is active in
raising awareness but does not engage in ‘policing’.
- Personal experience from a 5-year tenure: the often unspoken
suspicion that ethics equates with ‘restriction’ can be overcome
by the principle ‘practice what you preach’ meaning that
applicants for ethical clearance are dealt with the same integrity
which REC expects for their research proposals.
*Actual title used by the author of this poster for information sessions between June and November 2015 for
academics in the various departments of Tilburg University School of Humanities and Digital Sciences.