Research Ethics Committee and Registration of Literature Studies and REK approved projects and ethical approved projects approved at other institutions

The Dean has appointed the Research Ethics Committee.

The Research Ethics Commitees’ responsibilites:

To establish and operate a register of the Faculty’s research projects
To assess the research-ethical reliability of research projects at the Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences
To be a driving force behind the training of scientific employees and that students at the Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences have access to information
Literature Studies should not be approved by FEK, they only need to be registered by students. Scientific personnel: Registration of litterature studies, REK approved studies and approved studies by other instututions must be sent by mail to Eli Andås (eli.andas@uia.no) for registration.

The applicant is responsible for the supervisor / project manager having approved that the project is ready for assessment in the Research Ethics Committee, and that the required attachments have been sufficiently worked through before the application is sent.

Application for ethical approval of research projects

Master’s-, PhD- and staff projects that are to be assessed by FEK, should be submitted by the 15^th of each month:

All necessary approvals must be available before applying for approval from FEK. Please do not send an application to FEK unless you have the approval from NSD or a feedback from REK.
Applications that are returned with a response requiring corrections must be returned to FEK within eight days. If this is not followed up, the application form must be filled in once more and resubmitted.

Apply here

Mandat for the committee

To establish and operate a register of the Faculty’s research projects

FEK is responsible for ensuring that there exists a systematic and readily available overview of all ongoing research projects at the Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences. This overview includes student projects, PhD projects, and research projects involving scientific employees. It also includes projects which have been approved by the Regional Committee for Medical and Health Research Ethics.

To assess the research-ethical reliability of research projects at the Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences

FEK is responsible for ensuring that an independent assessment of all research projects based at the Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences is carried out. All projects outside the mandate of REK are, therefore, to be assessed by FEK. Since the Data Protection Official for Research at the Norwegian Centre for Research Data (NSD) does not conduct an ethics assessment, projects approved by NSD must also be assessed by FEK. This will ensure that the project manager is not the only one who is involved with the ethics assessment of a research project. FEK processes applications once per month, and its meeting schedule is made available to both students and staff well before the beginning of the semester.

To be a driving force behind the training of scientific employees and that students at the Faculty of Health and Sport Sciences have access to information

FEK is to be a driving force behind the training of scientific employees in current research-ethical issues and dilemmas as well in an efficient manner ensuring that necessary ethical assessments of research projects based at the Faculty take place. FEK will also function as an advisory body to researchers and students (who should first see their advisor) who are uncertain about whether to apply for approval from REK/NSD.

Stipulated by the Dean, 6 October 2017.

Registration – Literature Studies and projects with ordinary REK-approval (not only a remit assessment from REK) and ethical approved projects approved at other institutions

You can register here

Bachelor’s projects

Three possible strategies for dealing with privacy protection problems in Bachelor’s theses.

When completing theoretical assignments and literature reviews, general research-ethical guidelines for thesis writing apply. There should normally be no problems linked to privacy protection.
When carrying out projects that collect empirical data, the person responsible for the course may function as the leader of the project (qualitative or quantitative) if there is a cluster of projects within the same thematic area. These must then be reported as one project to SIKT. The project work will be considered as research and may, under certain conditions, be published. This makes it necessary to follow the procedures for information and consent that are described by SIKT. The projects must adhere to the research-ethical guidelines that apply to such projects and must also apply to FEK as one joint project. See SIKT for instructions.
When carrying out projects that collect anonymous empirical data, there is usually no need for notifying SIKT and FEK. It shall not be possible to trace anonymous data back to individuals, neither directly (through person-unambiguous markers like names), indirectly (through a combination of background information like age, gender, place etc.) or by using a code and alignment key. An example of this may be measuring oxygen intake on a treadmill and alignment with other tests. In such cases, there is no need for research protocol, information- and consent form and SIKT or FEK assessment.

Studies carried out by students on each other require consent and information about the terms described (above), ( for instance that no names, id-numbers or any information that identifies persons should be registered. The terms must be clearly set out both in the project answer papers and in the course descriptions. The specifications will contribute to data protection and mastery of the research-ethical and methodical skills. Projects based on anonymous empirical data are not classified as research and cannot, therefore, be published.

Important!

Please be aware that neither SIKT nor FEK is responsible for considering whether a bachelor’s project must apply to SIKT or FEK. This assessment is the responsibility of the individual student in cooperation with the person responsible for the course and the supervisor. It presupposes that the terms and requirements have been presented both in the teaching and in the course descriptions.