Advisory Board of Ethics

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In short: An advisory board of ethics at a university checks research project applications for their ethical questions and implications.


Background & History

Ethical boards are institutionalized review and advisory bodies providing assistance to e.g. researchers regarding ethical aspects.

As long as there has been scientific research, there have been manifold ethical implications: effects on people, nature, society; questions of (mis-)use or accessibility to the new knowledge, misconduct and questions of proportionality. In the 1960s, the World Medical Association agreed on a declaration on ethical standards in medical research on humans: do no harm, informed consent, beneficiance and justice through attempted fairness. Let’s take this moment in time as a beginning of ethical boards like we know them today at universities and beyond. One prominent example is the German board of ethics (Deutscher Ethikrat) that advices the German parliament during draft law and legislation processes, as well as informing public debate on developments in life sciences and other societally relevant ethical questions. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics (British) and the Comité Consultatif National d'Éthique (French) are two exemplary pendants for other national boards of ethics.

More and more journals and communities are demanding ethics advisory board assessments - but how exactly do these boards work?

On a university level, many research projects can have some of the above mentioned ethical implications. That is why many universities have an advisory board of ethics, so that there is an institutional self-control. The board reads and evaluates proposals from researchers at their own university to give consent, help, counseling or even sanctions. The application should be done before the start of the research project with regard to ethical implications. The Leuphana board of ethics exists since 2012 and consists of 10 members (scientists and professors). One of them is the board’s head who can be represented by two additional professors (vice-head).

What a board of ethics does

A board of ethics looks at many levels of ethics in the overall research endeavor but also on specific research processes. There are multiple standards and guidelines that the boards can build onto. Overall, an ethics review is an established and necessary process.

Some disciplines and topics apply at the board of ethics for advice more often than others, such as psychology, education and ecology. For instance, an experiment from the field of psychology could have effects on participants that are of ethical relevance. Another example to make it more tangible would be a research project regarding a certain endangered species, where traps could lead to animal suffering. This should be brought to the ethical board’s attention beforehand. Ideally however, projects from all (inter-)disciplines should let an ethical board take a look over the endeavor. A questionnaire in secondary schools on eating behavior should go through an ethical consideration, as well as sociological narrative interviews, business workshops or focus groups to discuss political policies in rural areas etc.

Researchers should apply with their planned research when preparing it and not when it has already started or even worse, in retrospect (when it is already over).

Some prominent aspects of a research project that are inspected by the board of ethics are data storage (Where and how is data stored? For how long? Is data security and privacy protection ensured?), methodological design and conduct and proportionality (Is the research in proportion to the goal? Is any form of suffering proportional to the use?)

Readers from an undergraduate (Bachelor’s) degree could be wondering if their seminar research or Bachelor thesis research should then also apply at the board of ethics for statement. In most cases, it is safe to say that in group work and on you own, reflect on the ethical implications, but mostly it will neither necessary nor feasible to get every seminar research through the board of ethics application. Remember Occam’s razor here again. Relevant for you right now are mostly the following aspects:

  • Which biases are there in your work, e.g. in qualitative work with data but also in constructed assumptions in quantitative work (economic models etc.)
  • Interviews, focus groups etc.: Did you get informed consent?
  • Surveys: What about your data storage?

Example: Application form and process at Leuphana University Lüneburg

When applying for a review by the advisory board of ethics at Leuphana with a given research proposal, you first need to fill out a form (that can be found in the intranet) containing the following aspects:

  • Key project data
  • Brief description of the project (formulated in the appendix), sometimes application for third-party funding
    • contact details, background, area, project design, possible (ethical) difficulties, concept for data management
  • Unspecific questions for all research fields
    • Was the proposal already submitted elsewhere?
    • Basic check: Self-interest of the researchers?
    • Legal starting position
  • Specific ethical questions on three areas
    • A) Research with human subjects
      • Informed consent, voluntariness
      • Aspects of deception & strain on participants, psychological studies
      • Handling of data
    • B) With or in the environment and nature/non-human living beings
      • Authorisations (location-based)
      • Balancing of interests, if study location in economically disadvantaged regions
    • C) Data security and management

After handing in the form to the head of the board, you have to wait for the board of ethics to call a meeting. This can take some weeks, but a decision is to be made on any application within six weeks. The board’s meeting runs as follows, according to the Leuphana Directive on the Board of Ethics: “(1) The Ethics Advisory Board may request an oral explanation of the research project or additional documents, information or justifications from the applicant. (2) The applicant may be heard by the Ethics Advisory Board before the opinion is issued. He or she shall be heard at his or her request. (3) Members who are involved in the research project or whose interests are affected in such a way that there is concern of bias are excluded from the discussion of the resolution” (Leuphana Gazette 2012, p. 3).

The Board has to discuss an application in person and then decides on two members to give a vote. Based on this vote, the board gives a statement for the application in question. Once the board made a decision, it is the decision of the board as a whole. The head of the board can, in specific cases, be authorized by the board to decide on their own (Leuphana Gazette 2012, p. 3).

Strengths & challenges

The board’s main advantage is the opportunity to double check a research project beforehand with experts. The board of ethics has the potential to question, help or even sanction a project that has ethical implications. However, simply having a board of ethics is important but not sufficient. The board really has to consider the cases deeply and be able to reject applications. Otherwise, it is a very ineffective system. The remaining challenge therefore is to increase consequences for ethically unsound projects and the overall seriousness and relevance across all fields.

Normativity

The board of ethics is only activated if the researcher themself applies for a statement. Thus, it is a rather voluntary step during the research planning. Since some journals and research fields ask for a board of ethics assessment more than others, the board’s activation is highly skewed. There may be obvious ethical implications of a psychological experiment but there may as well be comparably many in economic/political/you name it research.

Outlook

An ethics review by e.g. an advisory board of ethics, such as at Leuphana, is an established and necessary process. There is however a growing misunderstanding of what the board or its members is there for. Getting ethical absolution is not what a board of ethics can do for a research project. It is also barely possible via a simple email contact to one member, where the consultation resembles a remote diagnosis. “The opinion of the Ethics Advisory Board does not release the person responsible for the responsible for the project under review from the responsibility for carrying out the investigations” (Leuphana Gazette 2012, p. 2). Thus, the board of ethics should evolve to become an even more known board of recommendation/reviewing, so that external experts (third party) are commissioned to asses and inspect an application or (mis)conduct. It should never function as an institution granting ethical absolution. The necessity to get an ethical review should become more common, even to disciplines that are currently less often consulting the board. This article therefore is an invitation and a call for applying ethical assessments more but also for the board of ethics itself to being stricter.

References

Leuphana-specific

Research ethics in general

Further information

The author of this entry is Linda von Heydebreck.

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