Ethics Committee

If your research was reviewed by an ethics committee of another institution, please send the request, documents, and review outcome to the secretary of EC-CIS. The secretary will let you know whether a filled-out checklist for a full assessment by this committee is still necessary (or whether they can assess based on those already existing materials). 

If you plan to do research with possible ethical issues, please follow the procedure below:

1. Check out the different domain committees on where to file your request for assessment.
2. Go to the ethics review application and fill out the form. (There is a User manual available.) 
3. Make sure to select the committee that best fits your research, else you might have to redo the whole application. Choose EC-CIS when your research is part of a project in which new ICT technology is designed or developed. User studies around the design and development of novel ICT technology are part of that, but so are, for example, projects developing novel measurement systems or (data sets for) AI modules.
4. Prepare the necessary documents and upload these in the web form. Depending on your research, these could be consent forms, information brochures, research plans or protocols, etc. There is a template for a consent form available.
5. If necessary, you could ask an ethics adviser (see below) for help preparing your request. You can save a draft of your application in de app and download it as a PDF.
   Students can ask the pre-check team for advice (this is no longer mandatory).
6. If you are a (Ph.D.-)student, the request will be sent automatically to your supervisor for their consent. 
7. After submission (and after consent from the supervisor in the case of a (Ph.D.-)student), the request will be referred to a committee member for review. The reviewer might send the request back with comments or requests for more information and, afterward, formulate advice on whether the committee sees any objections to the research going forward.

If you are a bachelor's or master's student and your research is part of a course in your study, your teacher will take care of the ethics assessment.  

Supervisors will receive an email from the web application when a (PhD-)student submits a request for review. As a supervisor, you need to approve the request before it is sent to the committee.  Clicking the link in the email will open the web application where you can approve the request or send it back to the student with comments.

If you want to make changes to research that has already received positive advice from the EC-CIS, please follow the procedure below:

Send an e-mail to the ethics committee with a list of the changes you want to make and whether you think this might affect the ethical aspects or raise new ethical concerns. 

Depending on whether the changes are trivial, the amendment will either be directly archived with the original request or will be reviewed again. You will be notified about the outcome.

• Chair Dr.ir. D. Reidsma (Dennis) (EEMCS-HMI)
• Vice-Chair Dr. D. Bucur (Doina) (EEMCS-DMB)
• Vice-Chair Dr. J. van der Ham (Jeroen) (EEMCS-DACS)
• Member Dr. G. Caltais (Georgiana) (EEMCS-FMT)
• Member Dr. V. Groenhuis (Vincent) (EEMCS-RAM)
• Member Dr. Ir. T.S. van Ede MSc (Thijs) (EEMCS-SCS)
• Member Dr. Ir. R. Sommese (Raffaele) (EEMCS-DACS)
• Member L. Sánchez Chamorro PhD (Lorena) (EEMCS-HMI)
• Member Dr. D. Babushkina (Dina) (BMS-Philosophy)
• Secretary Drs. P. de Willigen (Petri)
• Administrative support J.M. Boelema - Kaufmann (Jolanda)

• For HMI researchers: Dennis Reidsma
• For questions related to AI ethics: Doina Bucur
• For general questions on the procedure and the ethics guidelines: Petri de Willigen

• Staff members who would like an extensive introduction to research ethics can join the PhD workshop. Please contact Dennis Reidsma for more information and possible dates.
• Research groups can request a presentation tailored to their research from one of the EC members.