The Research Ethics Act (forskningsetikkloven) assumes that research conducted by public or private actors is conducted in accordance with recognized norms of research ethics. 6. Researchers have a legal duty to ensure that research is conducted in accordance with recognized norms of research ethics. 7. Public offices and private organizations share a responsibility to ensure that their participation in research complies with recognized norms of research ethics.
Dissemination of research: Researchers and research institutions have a responsibility to disseminate scientific results, methods, and attitudes from their own and others’ research
Research ethics balances the norms of openness and independence against demands of social utility and relevance.
THE RESEARCH COMMUNITY
- Free and independent research
- Obligations of the research community
- Academic assessment
- Supervisors and project leaders
- The supervisory relationship
- Openness, accountability, and critique
- Scientific publication
- Good citation practice
- Co-authorship
- Plagiarism
- Fabrication and falsification
- Distortion and concealment
- Safety and security
- International collaboration
Researchers must disclose relevant roles and affiliations when approving, reviewing, or evaluating research or research implications. A supervisory relationship can include both academic and private relationships, which can lead to conflicts of roles and interests in the evaluation of the student/PhD candidate's work or in the research community at large. Researchers who contribute reviews and participate in editorial work must ensure the integrity of the research.
RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS
- Consent to participate in research
- Impaired capacity to consent
- Protection of children
- Exceptions from the demand for consent
- Transparency about roles and responsibilities
- Anonymity
- Confidentiality
- Duty of notification
- Privacy and family life
- Storage and sharing of research material
- Reporting the results
- Direct and indirect involvement
- Values and motives
- Risk of harm and disadvantage
- Posthumous legacy
- Future generations
Consent must be documentable to highlight the researchers' responsibility and to ensure the rights of the participants. Regardless of the type of documentation, researchers are responsible for safeguarding the participants' freedoms, rights and human dignity. 18 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, article 12 on the right to be heard.
Therefore, consideration of other reasons for data processing than consent may be necessary, for example that the research is in the general public interest, see personvernorparordningen (GDPR) art. When obtaining consent is impossible or impossible, researchers must justify the expected value of the results. The researchers are responsible for informing the persons involved about the goals and results of the project.
In situations where researchers have multiple roles, they are responsible for clarifying the boundaries of the research relationship. Anonymity of participants should be ensured, both in publications and in other forms of distribution. This is a condition for both the credibility of the researcher and the trust of the research participants.
Research participants and others who are indirectly involved in the research have the right to be informed about the results of the research. Potential disadvantages to people outside the research project must be balanced against the critical function of the research. Researchers must respect the self-understanding of research participants and avoid descriptions that may challenge their legitimate rights or promote stigmatization.
GROUPS AND INSTITUTIONS
- Disadvantaged and vulnerable groups
- Respect for cultural differences
- Cultural heritage
- Public administration
- Private companies and organisations
When researching culturally defined groups, respecting and acquiring knowledge about the local context and social relationships is important. These resources include both cultural and natural heritage, and can include landscapes, places, memorials, objects, texts and archives, as well as oral sources and intangible cultural heritage.29 Research into human remains is subject to special ethical rules. The value of the research must be weighed against the extent to which the material has been destroyed or altered.
If the ownership (provenance) is controversial, unknown or unclear, the researchers must consider the source and history of the object and clarify rightful ownership of the material to ensure that the research is responsible. Prudence in research involving such material requires that the researchers and research institutions provide an ethical justification and contribute to transparency about the origin of the material. 31. Public offices have a duty to document and archive information about their own activities, and this information must be made available to researchers as far as possible and without great costs or delays.32 Likewise, public offices must make provision for research on their own work.
Private companies and organizations should therefore make their activities and data available for research, even if the purposes of the research do not align with their institutional interests. Openness about data and equal treatment of researchers is important, independent of the purpose of the research. Research on such data can challenge the integrity of research in various ways, such as manipulated data, lack of transparency in decision-making processes and unreasonable differences in access to products and services.
Researchers have a specific obligation to consider whether research on such data can be undertaken responsibly.
COMMISIONERS, FUNDERS, AND COLLABORATORS
- Independence in research
- The responsibility of the research institutions
- Commissioners and funders
- Collaborative projects
- User involvement
- Transparency about funding, roles, and interests
- Use of research results
- The right to publication and public presentation
- Publication ethics
Research institutions must ensure that all research is conducted in accordance with recognized norms of research ethics. The institutions are obliged to protect their employees from undue pressure and control that can contribute to the weakening of research ethics. 33. However, research ethics articulates clear requirements for independence and openness regarding contracts, ownership and the right to publication.
The institutions must ensure that all their research is carried out in accordance with recognized ethical norms and that all external partners participating in the research are familiar with the recognized norms of research ethics. 34. Commissioners and funders are jointly responsible for ensuring that their participation in research is in accordance with recognized norms of research ethics. Commissioners and funders have a joint responsibility to ensure that their participation in research projects is in accordance with recognized norms of research ethics.
Commissioners and funders must avoid providing incentives and guidance that put independence and research ethics under pressure. Commissioners who organize and fund research, whether public or private, must have competence in research ethics. Collaborators have a joint responsibility for ensuring that their participation in research is in accordance with recognized research ethical norms.
Commissioners and funders who facilitate user involvement have a joint responsibility to ensure compliance with research ethics.
DISSEMINATION OF RESEARCH
- Dissemination as a social responsibility
- Dissemination as an institutional responsibility
- Dissemination and accountability
- Dissemination and factuality
- Participation in interdisciplinary dialogue
- Participation in public debate
Dissemination of research is an institutional responsibility.39 Institutions should therefore develop a strong culture for research dissemination, and they must remove barriers to dissemination and skewed incentive and reward systems that can contribute to the weakening of research dissemination. Institutions must ensure that research dissemination is always in accordance with recognized principles of research ethics. Research institutions have a responsibility to ensure that all who participate in the dissemination of research are familiar with research ethics.
Dissemination of research is therefore subject to the same question of accountability as scientific publishing. The referral requirements are not the same, but references to sources can lead the audience to specialized academic literature, either to seek more information or to verify the arguments presented. Researchers may share hypotheses, theories, and preliminary findings with the public while a project is underway, but they may not present preliminary results as if they are conclusive.
In addition, they should clarify the limitations of their academic perspective and their competence in relation to the relevant issue, making it easier for the public to consider whether other scientific perspectives may lead to different conclusions. Researchers must express themselves clearly, making it possible for other researchers from different fields and other participants in the public debate to consider their arguments and claims. Researchers should also point out and correct misleading representations and misuse of research in public debate.
The researcher who participates in the public debate as a researcher is obliged to communicate scientific results, methods and attitudes.
ATTACHMENT
About NESH
History of NESH
The background for the initiative by the Parliament was the report Forskning og etisk ansvar (Research and Ethical Responsibility) (1981), which was commissioned by a national commission on "Research and Ethics" formed in 1979. The report outlined the international development of research ethics since the Second World War, in the wake of the Nuremberg atomic bombs and. He discussed how the fundamental norms and values of science were articulated in the 'ethos of science' and how this normative structure could come under pressure from other societal interests.
It also discussed the risks associated with new technologies.44 It concluded that research ethics councils should be established, both within institutions and at national level. In the report, it was important to clarify the connection between research ethics and legal acts regarding the protection of personal data. Project Metropolit' ('Projekt Metropolis') in the 1960s, where personal data from students was used in longitudinal studies without the consent of the children and their parents.
In the 1970s, 'Gro-saken' ('the Gro-affair') led to a debate about research-based abuse of vulnerable children in institutions. In 1978, Norway introduced a new law on public registers which also established the legal basis for the processing of personal data in research; the Norwegian Data Protection Authority was established in the same year. It was also suggested that a research ethics board for social sciences should be established.45 Research ethics was therefore institutionalized before the legal regulation, and in 1990 research ethics in Norway was formalized into three national committees, with NESH covering both the social sciences and the humanities.
The Research Ethics Act was introduced in 2007 and replaced by the latest act in 2017.
Ethical guidelines and legal acts
The national research ethics system
The Regional Committees for Medical and Health Research Ethics (REKs) consider all projects in the framework of medical and health research, which according to the Health Research Act of 2009 require prior approval by the REK.52 Since 1978, ethical issues in medical research have been considered by an ethics commission under a national research council (NAVF), which was a forerunner of the NEM. In 1985, five regional committees on medical research ethics were established, which were the forerunners of the RECs. Regardless of Norwegian legislation, the International Declaration of Helsinki is a central source for medical research ethics.53 Other units.
Legal issues surrounding the processing of personal data are regulated by the Personal Data Act of 2018. Institutions are responsible for complying with the law, and the institution's data protection officer is responsible for ensuring that the collection and processing of personal data is lawful. Many research institutions obtain advice on data management from the Norwegian Center for Research Data (NSD), which since January 2022 has been part of Sikt, the new Norwegian agency for shared services within education and research.
De NSD adviseert over specifieke projecten op basis van ingediende meldingsformulieren voor persoonsgegevens. Bjørn Hvinden (voorzitter) Kirsten Johanne Bang Kjersti Fjørtoft Ingegerd Holand Roar Johnsen Ivar Kolstad Tor Monsen Anne Nevøy Erling Sandmo May-Len Skilbrei Elisabeth Staksrud Knut Martin Tande Pål Ulleberg Lisbeth Øyum. Anne Gjelsvik Marit Anne Hauan Ingegerd Holand Ove Jakobsen Lynn Nygaard Hilde Pape Erling Sandmo Einar Spurkeland Knut Martin Tande Elin Thuen.
Kirsti Coward Victor Hellern Kari Helliesen Wenche Håland Tore Lindholm Yngvar Løken Halvor Moxnes Pål Repstad Sølvi Sogner.
The Norwegian National Research Ethics Committees Kongens gate 14, 0153 Oslo, Norway
