Research Ethics Council

To ensure that good research ethics is applied in all degree projects at University of Gävle that concern people, degree projects at the first and second level are reviewed by the Research Ethics Council at the University.

When do you need to consult the Research Ethics Council?

• Whenever there is a relationship of dependency between participants and students / researchers, for example when the participants are patients, children, or schoolchildren.
• Whenever the study is planned to include participants who belong to a vulnerable group. Participants could be children (people under 18 years of age), people with impaired cognitive ability or mental impairments.
• Whenever the study is planned to include what is classified as sensitive personal data in the Ethics Review Act, that is information on race or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health, a person's sexual life or sexual orientation, data related to criminal offenses or genetic and biometric data.
  
• Whenever the study contains sensitive personal data regarding health, a broad definition of the concept of health should be applied. Please note that staff's perception of, or assessment of, work-related stress to health should be considered to be related to health even if the participants are healthy individuals. Every type of information that includes patients should be related to health and ill health.
• Whenever the study is planned to include participants who belong to a vulnerable group. Participants could be children (people under 18 years of age), people with impaired cognitive ability or mental impairments.
• When participants to a study are recruited directly via the internet or when data material is downloaded from the internet via, for example, blogs or chats and any of the above four conditions apply. Publications with guidance for online recruitment and data collection: 
  • Markham, A and Buchanan, E (2011) Ethical Decision-making and Internet research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee. http://www.aoir.org/reports/ethics2.pdf
  • Stainton,H and Iordanova, E (2017) An ethical perspective for researchers using travel blog analysis as a method of data collection. Methodological Innovations 10(3) 1-7. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F2059799117748136
  • Snee H (2013) Making Ethical decisions in an Online context: Reflections o using blogs to explore narratives of experience. Methodological Innovations Online 8(2) 52—67. https://doi.org/10.4256/mio.2013.013
  • Fjell IT (2010) Offentliggjort, men inte offentligt? Några tankar om bruket av Internetkällor. Nätverket (17)77-82.