The Ethics Committee (EC):
- Examines Dept. members’ approval requests on research protocols involving human participants - excluding medical research - and provides advise in a relatively short time;
- Examines approval requests by considering the physical and psychological well-being of research participants, and especially participants belonging to vulnerable groups (e.g., underaged, people who cannot provide consent to participation, prisoners, hospitalized patients, stigmatized groups or groups at risk of social discrimination);
- Carefully evaluates research protocols that use deceit, employ stimuli that may hurt the personal or cultural sensibility of those who take part to the research, or limit respondents’ right to anonymity and confidentiality.
The EC provides advice by considering:
- the protection of participants with regard to physical and psychological well-being, decision-making autonomy and confidentiality;
- the completeness and comprehensibility of the information consent forms;
- the reliability of the security procedures for the prevention and risk management of the people involved in the research;
- the reliability of security procedures, data storage and protection;
- the clear explanation of research hypotheses and the soundness of the theoretical and methodological structure;
- the presence in the research team of the required skills.
The EC usually meets monthly, according to a pre-established Calendar (see the Documents section), and examines the requests received at least 7 days before the date of the meeting scheduled in the calendar. The organization and functioning of the EC are governed by these Regolamento (Regulations).
The Documents section also contains: the approval request templates (request for approval, resubmission with modifications, fast-track approval), and the informed consent templates (for underaged and adult participants).
Links to the approval requests online submissions can be found at:
NEW ETHICAL APPROVAL REQUEST
ETHICAL APPROVAL REQUEST – REVISION
ETHICAL APPROVAL REQUEST – CHANGES AFTER APPROVAL