Vacancy
The BMS/HSS EC is currently looking for a new chair. If you are interested, please send a brief message outlining your motivation, profile, and ethics-related experience to Lyan Kamphuis-Blikman, l.j.m.blikman@utwente.nl, cc ethicscommittee-hss@utwente.nl.
We would like to make a decision in early June, so please send your message no later than 31 May.
About our committee
The UT has adopted a university-wide research ethics policy, stating that all non-medical research requires ethical assessment by one of the 4 domain-specific ethics committees. The BMS Ethics Committee/domain Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) is one of these domain-specific committees, facilitating and monitoring the ethical conduct of all research in the field of humanities and social sciences involving human beings. Mainly, this pertains to the research of BMS faculty staff and students, but (sometimes) to other UT faculties as well. The overarching goal of the BMS/HSS EC is to foster a culture conducive to good scientific research that respects the legitimate interests of various stakeholders, such as human participants. Ethical review of research is mandatory for BMS staff and Ba/Ma-students before they start their data collection. Research requests are handled via the BMS ethical review application or the (domain-wide) UT Ethical Review tool. Our committee process around 1100 research requests yearly.
The BMS/HSS EC consists of seven members – among which a chair and vice-chair – and ten additional reviewers, who together cover the different disciplines and sections within BMS; check our website for further details. The committee members meet around three times a year, and an additional (training) meeting with all reviewers is held.
The chair and vice-chair of the four domain-specific ethics committees at UT also attend regular meetings of the University-Wide Ethics Committee (UwEC) approx. five times a year to share knowledge on ethical issues. The UwEC is responsible for the ethical review of complex and/or controversial research proposals related to two or more domains. It also acts as an appeals committee in case of an objection against issued advice of a domain-specific committee. In addition, they are responsible for quality assurance of the ethical review policy, handling complaints by research participants, and developing training for students and staff.
The chair and secretary also attend meetings of Nethics, the national network of ECs in the behavioral and social sciences.
