Ethics and Research

Researchers at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences (FPPW) must adhere to general ethical research principles:

• Within the FPPW, the General Ethical Protocol (GEP) is the ethical guide for scientific research. A must read!
• For a selection of codes of conduct and reference works on ethical principles, see this page.
• The central website also has a section dedicated to ethics in scientific research.

The Ethics Committee

The mission of the FPPW Ethics Committee is to advise researchers on ethical issues and review research applications. The mission statement of the Ethics Committee is described in the GEP.

To do justice to diverse traditions of research, the FPPW Ethics Committee is composed of members from all departments. The chair is prof. Thierry Marchant and the secretary is prof. Melissa Tuytens.

• Mission statement EC
• Composition EC

Applying for ethical approval

Before starting

• Go through the General Ethics Protocol (AEP) thoroughly.
• Check whether ethical approval is necessary. A list of situations where it is necessary to seek approval from the FPPW Ethics Committee can be found in the General Ethics Protocol.
• In some cases, it is necessary to apply to another committee (e.g. the Medical Ethics Committee). More information on this can be found in the introduction to the General Ethics Protocol.
• Please note that only files of approved projects are assessed. Applications relating to projects that have not yet been submitted or are awaiting approval (e.g. by the FWO) will not be assessed by the ethics committee.
• Preferably submit a full English dossier (i.e. those documents that are not used for communication with the participants, such as the SEP, DMP and GDPR-record), but a Dutch dossier can of course also be submitted.
• Applications for master's theses should be submitted by the supervisor.

Submitting an application

• Complete the Specific Ethics Protocol (SEP).
• Complete the dossier with all the documents required (see the checklist in the SEP).
• Forward the complete file to ec.pp@UGent.be.
• To get an idea of what a typical application file looks like, here are some examples inspired by real applications.

What is the procedure for applications?

• The General Ethics Protocol
• The Specific Ethics Protocol
• Informed consent: templates and examples

Tips & points of interest

• The use of legal grounds 'public interest' and 'consent' when collecting personal data
• GDPR and research