Ethics committee

Mission

The faculty Ethics Committee:

• checks whether the research carried out in the faculty is in accordance with the ethical rules and the Belgian legislation
• advises on ethical issues when submitting research applications

Contact

• Chair: Veerle Provoost
• Email: ethics.lw@ugent.be

Request for an ethics approval

• application for an ethics approval (staff only)

Guidelines for master's thesis students and their supervisors

• As a rule, master's thesis students do not conduct independent research with vulnerable people and do not question people on sensitive topics and/or subjects where these are more likely to give rise to psychological or emotional consequences for the participant
• Often, a master's thesis proposal can be transformed into a research project in which the student involves a less vulnerable group of participants
  • Example:
    A study with women who were victims of sexual violence may become a study in which professionals or citizens working on initiatives for these women are surveyed rather than the women themselves, or in which written sources (policy documents, newspaper articles, etc.) are collected and analysed
  • Whereas in an academic study we often want to work directly with these women in order to ‘give them a voice’, we recommend not doing this in a master's thesis study for two reasons:
    1. The master's thesis student will not always have the skills to deal with such participants or such topic
    2. We cannot sufficiently guarantee that the research carried out by a student actually gave the participant a voice. A study may raise that expectation in a participant. With participants who become disillusioned after participating in a study, we just reduce the chances of having their voice heard through participation in subsequent research
• Master's thesis students should therefore, as a rule, not seek approval from the faculty ethics committee. An application is only recommended if the students (and promoters) would like to use the results of the master's thesis research for a scientific publication
• Deviations from this rule are possible. In this case, a request must be made to the faculty ethics committee, clearly co-signed by the supervisor. The supervisor agrees to closely follow up the study and to provide the student with sufficient training and supervision to minimise the risks for the participants and to ensure that the results of the study are of sufficient quality to have a minimal impact
• Of course, this does not mean that research with vulnerable participants or around sensitive topics is discouraged at our faculty. A clear distinction, however, is made between research (for scientific and ethical reasons carried out by trained and well-surrounded researchers) and a master's thesis (a piece of work or research project with which a student can demonstrate that certain competences have been acquired)