Ethical and responsible research

Research development at the University of Liège complies with the standards held at the national and international (European, in particular) level

T

he University demands researchers to reflect on ethical questions and on the proper conduct in different aspects of their research work: research in the strict sense, publishing, communication and contribution to society, notably through expertise and responsible research and innovation:

• Internally financed projects are evaluated by taking these aspects into account, and by integrating for the most part a list of ad hoc questions.
• Young researchers are made aware of these issues upon establishing their research programme
• Recourse to the ethics committee is essential as soon as the research addresses a sensitive or legally required topic.

Research requiring the opinion of an ethics committee

The ethics committees must be contacted for the following research:

• Research involving biological material - hospital-faculty ethics committee
• Research involving animals - animal ethics committee
• Research in the social sciences - committee on ethics in the social sciences
• Research in psychology - committee on ethics in psychology

Other issues may arise which require special attention. The CEIS can help give an opinion or guide researchers toward resource persons or bodies. Interesting recommendations issued by the European Commission as part of its research programmes can be found:

• Research involving developing countries
• Dual-use (civilian and military) research
• Digital technology research
• Specific issues: intellectual property, conflict of interest, participatory financing

Best practices exchange

The relationship with one's peers is important to enable researchers to exchange their viewpoints, to confront their attitudes in the face of dilemmas, to be inspired by best practices in order to grasp the issues raised. For this, the University of Liège:

• Is organising in March an annual "Ethics and Society" day, with presentation by a guest speaker and debate on the chosen theme
  • Issues of ethics in research, Michèle Leduc, CNRS, France (2017)
  • Reproducibility of results, Marcus Munafo, Univ. Bristol, UK (2016) .
  • Conflits d’intérêt & expertise libre , Yves Bertheau,  Directeur de recherche INRA (MNHN), France (2018)
• Demonstrating its experience and enriching it with that of others in seminars, conferences and study days
  • "Scientific ecosystems and research reproducibility", F. Caeymaex & E. Tirelli, 2017
  • 10th EUA-CDE workshop on Ethics and Integrity in doctoral education and research training, 2017 
  • "Approche intégrée de l’éthique et l’intégrité scientifique à l’Université de Liège", I.Halleux, ETTRES, University of Lyon, 2017

Tools and training programmes

• Laboratory notebook
• Legal training "FELASA" in laboratory animal science for all persons involved in animal experimentation, regardless of their status.
• Training with publication of educational documents (Training researchers to ethics in research)
• EU H2020 guidance - How to complete your ethics self-assessment
• The European code of conducts for research integrity (March 2017)
• The code of ethics for scientific research in Belgium