This guide provides an overview of ethics and integrity requirements under the Horizon Europe programme.
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Importance of ethics and integrity in research
Ethics and integrity play a crucial role in promoting the fundamental goals of research, truth and knowledge, and minimizing research errors. Ethics and integrity are also the cornerstone of collaborative, insightful inquiry and contribute to research accountability.
Both the European Union's and Canada's research and innovation activities are governed by overarching ethical principles such as respect, public welfare, and justice. These principles support the integrity of research and innovation processes and results.
All Horizon Europe project proposals are subject to a rigorous ethics appraisal. Horizon Europe places ethics and integrity at the centre of research and requires that all stages of a project be evaluated through an ethical lens. The European Commission's ethics appraisal procedure ensures that responses to Horizon Europe calls meet the highest ethical research standards.
Ethics in Canadian vs. Horizon Europe funding agreements
Canadian funding agreements do not require an ethics approval when research proposals are submitted to federally funded research grant committees, but require one before the release of funds.
Ethics reviews under Horizon Europe are based on a comprehensive ethics issues table, with several stages depending on the complexity of the ethics issues. For more information, visit the Ethics appraisal procedure section below.
For more information on ethics in Horizon Europe agreements, visit the Horizon Europe contact information page to find your relevant National Contact Point.
Where do I start?
All applicants must conduct an ethics self-assessment (Section 12 of Horizon Europe Programme Guide). To support your assessment, consult the following stakeholders within your organization where applicable:
- Specialized ethics and compliance departments
- Relevant compliance managers
- Hospital ethics committees
- Ethics advisors in your organization (including research institutions and universities)
- Data protection officers
Ethics appraisal procedure objectives
The Ethics appraisal procedure assesses the scientific merit, quality of management, and potential impacts of prospective projects. This assesses a project's ethical position according to the following fundamental ethical principles (Section 12 of Horizon Europe Programme Guide):
- Respect for human dignity and autonomy
- Human rights and the protection of human beings
- Fair distribution of benefits and burdens
- Inclusiveness
- Free and informed consent
- Proportionality and minimizing risks
- Accountability and oversight
- Transparency
- Privacy and data governance
- Environmental protection
- Animal protection and welfare
- Scientific soundness
- Sharing the benefits with disadvantaged populations
Ethics appraisal procedure
Step 1: Ethics self-assessment
Before submitting a research proposal, all applicants must conduct an ethics self-assessment, which includes completing the appropriate ethics issues checklist. For information on completing this table, visit the How to complete your ethics self-assessment page.
The assessment includes:
- Any ethics issues identified and how they will be addressed
- Your intended approach to ensuring ethics compliance
- Any supporting documents (such as existing authorizations or permissions) and their expiry dates. If these documents are not yet available, you must indicate when you expect to receive them
Benefits of completing your self-assessment:
- Project improvement
- Ensures compliance with applicable international, EU, and national law
- Decreases proposal processing time
- Helps responsible implementation and social acceptance of the project
- Allows the results of research to be published more readily in internationally referred journals, thus increasing their impact
Step 2: Ethics review
If ethics issues are identified in Step 1 through the ethics screening process, an ethics assessment is conducted by experts, which may impose ethics requirements in the grant agreement.
Ethics checks, subsequent reviews, and audits are conducted once the project is completed (and in some cases afterward), and involve monitoring ethics issues and how they are addressed.
Ethics checks and reviews
As research projects are implemented, those that require it undergo ethics checks or reviews during their ethics screening process.
European Commission services can amend grant agreements following ethics checks, post-grant reviews, and audits. The European Commission can reduce funding amounts or terminate agreements in case of substantial breach of ethical principles, research integrity, or relevant legislation. You can find more information in your grant agreement.