Before any research involving participants, such as questionnaires, interviews, experiments or observations, or research involving personal data commences, approval of the Ethics Committee must be obtained.
Upholding ethical standards during research and obtaining ethics approval where necessary is an integral part of complying with the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, see 3.2 (13) and 4.6 (18) of the 2018 version. A growing number of academic journals as well as Dutch and European funding bodies require the formal approval of an Ethics Committee before an article can be published or a subsidy granted.
Anybody with an UvAnetID can apply for approval. However in case of Bachelor and Master student research only staff members can submit an application.
Go to the Faculty of Humanities' Research Management Services (RMS) Portal, login with your UvAnetID and create a new project. To gain access to the RMS-portal, you need to have activated the 2-factor-authentication using the Tiqr app for your UvAnetID.
Fill out both the Ethics Review (reviewed by the Ethics Committee) and the Privacy Protection Review (reviewed by a data steward) and submit these alongside the information brochure and informed consent form. Please note that both standard forms have to be adjusted to your project’s needs. Make sure that the information brochure and the consent form are consistent in their content.
Download the RMS Manual for Researchers (PDF)
Ethics applications submitted before 2023 are archived and can still be accessed by the applicants via the Ethics Data Management Review Portal.
To ensure timely approval, thesis research applications should be submitted as early and as complete as possible by the supervisor. Students may assist their supervisor with preparing the application as a collaborator in the RMS portal. The responsible supervisor, not the student, should check and submit the application.
Applicants of thesis projects can expect a first reaction to their project within a week after submission. The time until final approval of an application cannot be predicted because it heavily depends on the complexity and sensitivity of the project, as well as on the completeness of the application and the timely reaction of the applicant.
Download standard forms for the Information brochure and Informed consent form:
Download guidelines / procedures below. The guidelines will be kept up to date and may change as the situation changes. Be sure to check for the latest version!
Standard projects will be assigned to one member of the Ethics Committee and are evaluated throughout the year as they come in. Note that, during holiday periods, the review procedure can take longer due to limited staff availability.
Important note: the standard definition has been updated. The new definition is in place as of 27 of January 2024.
A project is considered standard if all of the following criteria apply:
Linguistic research, which frequently includes minors (a vulnerable group), is regarded as standard if all other standard features listed above apply.
Media studies research processing personal data from social media is considered standard if all of the following criteria apply:
Non-standard projects are discussed in one of the plenary meetings of the Ethics Committee and need to be submitted according to the deadlines below.
4 October 2024 (deadline for non-standard projects 26 September 2024)
The Ethics Committee consists of a chairperson, a professor of Ethics from the Philosophy Department and various members with specific areas of expertise covering all involved disciplines. The committee secretary is provided by the Faculty Office’s Research Department.
Ethics Committee secretary - commissie-ethiek-fgw@uva.nl | Binnengasthuisstraat 9 | 1012 ZA Amsterdam | kamer 2.03