ENAI Working Group

Ethics and Integrity Advisory Group

The Ethics and Integrity Advisory Group (EIAG) is established to fulfil ENAI’s commitment to academic integrity and promote an ethical code of conduct/practice amongst its member institutions and beyond.

Members

  • Shiva Sivasubramaniam, University of Derby, United Kingdom (head)
  • Laura Bandura-Morgan, Jagiellonian University, Poland (deputy-head)
  • Irene Glendinning, Coventry University, United Kingdom
  • Laura Ribeiro, University of Porto, Portugal
  • Rita Santos, European Network for Academic Integrity, Portugal
  • Sabuj Bhattacharyya, Institute for Stem Cell Science & Regenerative Medicine, India
  • Salim Razı, Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Türkiye
  • Sonja Bjelobaba, Uppsala University, Sweden
  • Thomas Illingworth, University of Derby, United Kingdom
  • Zeenath Reza Khan, University of Wollongong in Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Purpose

The working group aims to provide unbiased advice and consultancy on embedding ethical principles within all types of academic, research and public engagement activities. Our main objective is to promote ethical practice and share good practice in this field. As the name suggests, it is merely an advisory group with the purpose of standardising ethical norms and to offer strategic support to activities including:

  • Render advice and assistance to develop institutional ethical committees and their regulations in member institutions
  • Share good practice in research and academic ethics
  • Act as a critical guide to institutional review processes assisting them maintain/achieve ethical standards
  • Collaborate with similar bodies in establishing collegiate partnerships to enhance awareness and practice in this field
  • Provide support within and outside ENAI to develop materials to enhance teaching activities in this field
  • Organising training for students and young researchers about ethical behaviours in form of lectures, seminars, debates and Webinars
  • Enhance research and disseminate the findings in matters and topics related to ethics

Scope

Ethics governs everything in our day to day life. As academics, we are governed by ethics as it ensures good practice, self-esteem and dignity. They are a valuable part of academic integrity. In fact, there are a number of ethical standards that have been accepted throughout world which all academics and researchers are expected to comply with. As an advisory group, we feel it is important to establish ethical norms in any institution. Therefore as a part of ENAI, we are providing consultancy to individuals and institutions to help them to establish research ethics infrastructure and improve self-regulation. However, acting as an ethical approval committee (so-called institutional review board) or giving legislative advice is beyond the scope of this group. Our remits are currently limited to:

  • Developing institutional ethical committees
  • Determining the need of ethical approval for research, teaching and public engagement activities
  • Advice on ethical approval process and Individual ethical applications
  • Constructing participant informed consents
  • Formulating participant health questionnaire

Initial Ethical Approval procedure from ENAI

The Ethics and Integrity Advisory Group (EIAG) is happy to announce a new initiative for initial impartial ethical approval procedures for ENAI members and collaborators. This initial approval procedure is needed for all ENAI projects, including conference-related workshop data collections.

The main aim of this approval procedure is to ensure, the project is designed in accordance with international ethical guidance, by addressing any health & safety issues with risk assessments. However, this approval is not a substitute for institutional ethical approval from participants and/or collaborators. Instead, this ENAI ethical approval will help participants to prepare their own institutional ethical applications. Many institutions now expect this initial approval for international collaborative projects. This approval would also help to collect data from conference attendees by ensuring their anonymity in accordance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

In addition, this approval will assist those ENAI members (including independent researchers) from institutions which do not have a formal ethical approval procedure to conduct research.

We hope this will help to

  1. organise the project and its timeline proactively.
  2. legitimise the project by safeguarding the independent researchers and/ or participants and their individual rights.
  3. assist researchers who do not have institutional research ethics approval procedures.
  4. enhance/assist in obtaining institutional ethical approval.

Please note, many institutions usually expect their own ethical approval, if the data collection is based on their institutions. Additional ethical approvals in line with internal institutional policies must be obtained  from these institutions.

 

The procedure:

Please use the ENAI Ethical Application form (available in the members’ section. Please email ENAI in case you missed the password to access the members’ section)

by giving as much information as possible and send this via email to the chair of EIAG. This will be reviewed by two ENAI members and one independent external member, with experience in ethical approval. Based on their recommendation EIAWG will decide either to (a) accept, (b) ask for modification and resubmission or (c) reject the application. We intend to complete this procedure within 40 days (30 days for the review followed by a maximum of 10 days for the EIAG decision, subject to members’ availability). The modifications may be minor or major; the timeline for the former to be resubmitted is usually two weeks, and for the latter, it would be one month.

Additional assistance from ENAI member institutions

We expect all ENAI partner institutions to suggest one reviewer’s name, who is not the ENAI representative, as an independent reviewer. ENAI has the right to use independent and experienced reviewers outside the organisation for complex applications (or if there is a conflict of interest).

Educational Materials

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