All members and associates of the WISO Faculty who are primarily responsible for conducting research projects are authorized to make an application. Research project applications to the WISO Ethics Committee from individuals who are not doctoral graduates must be accompanied by a statement from the supervisor. Students at the faculty may apply for an evaluation of the ethical aspects of proposed research projects required for achieving a qualification if the principal supervisor deems it necessary.

Submitting a request for review of a research project by the WISO Ethics Committee is not mandatory. Requests can be submitted by eligible applicants if they wish to ensure the ethical nature of their research or if a third party (e.g., when applying for external funding or in case of publication) requires an ethics review.

Generally, the standard procedure for reviewing ethical aspects of research conducted in WISO departments takes 3 to 6 months; the fast-track procedure is completed within 6 weeks. The ethics committee's decision will be sent to you in writing.

An expert opinion about externally funded research projects must be submitted well in advance of the planned start of the project. As a rule, submitting a request to the WISO Ethics Committee after you submit the grant application to the external funding provider is sufficient. Exceptions: The external funding provider demands an ethics vote when the grant application is submitted; short grant approval periods of under 6 months on the part of the funding provider. In particular, if the Ethics Committee needs to provide an expert opinion on the entire project, the request needs to be submitted before the external funding provider grants the application. For individual, clearly distinguishable subprojects within the overall project, it may be possible to conduct an expert review after external funding has been granted. Criteria in this case include the ability to clearly separate the subproject from the overall project; this also needs to be justified when the application is submitted and the request for a review must be made well in advance of the start of the subproject. We strongly advise you, in the case of complex projects, to contact the managing director of the Ethics Committee to clarify any questions before you submit a request.

Upon request, the WISO Ethics Committee may also review research projects that are not headed by scientists of the WISO Faculty, if there is a special interest of the faculty. This is the case, for example, when the WiSo research laboratory is used externally and the research laboratory's pool of test subjects is to be used.

More information about the WISO Research Lab

• As part of the review of research projects by WISO Ethics Committee, aspects relating to data protection are also queried. However, the WISO Ethics Committee does not conduct a data protection review within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

  For all research projects that include the processing of personal information, you must comply with statutory provisions. To determine whether data protection requirements need to be observed for your research project and which data protection requirements are particularly relevant, the University’s data protection staff have provided the following information.

  •            ISDSM data protection in research

  Use the "Data protection checklist for research projects" (point 3 in the documents on research data protection) to determine whether and which data protection requirements you need to observe for your research project.

  According to Article 30 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), all activities for which personal information needs to be processed must be listed in a record of processing activities (RoPA). For research projects conducted at the University of Hamburg, the University’s data protection team is the right contact. Find the report on processing activities (RoPA) below:

  •               Link to RoPA

No, it is up to the ethics committee to determine whether an application is to be processed under the fast-track procedure or the standard procedure for reviewing ethical aspects of research. To date, the practice has been that, for example, the fast-track procedure is not available where vulnerable groups are involved.

For the purposes of research ethics review by the ethics committee, all individual data collected is regarded as personal data.

Regulations under data protection law governing the handling of anonymised or pseudonymised data can be found in the Research Data Checklist (german only).

Yes, even with open-ended or qualitative methods, the research tool is required for the evaluation, for example an interview guide or observation checklist.