Research ethics

Humak is part of TENK’s RI support personnel system and the Human Sciences Ethics Committee of the Helsinki Region member organisation.

Humak complies with the following national guidelines (in Finnish):

TENK Hyvä tieteellinen käytäntö ja sen loukkausepäilyjen käsitteleminen Suomessa

Vuonna 2023 uudistettu ohje velvoittaa ammattikorkeakoulut tarjoamaan tutkimuseettistä koulutusta niin opiskelijoille kuin henkilökunnalle.

Ihmiseen kohdistuvan tutkimuksen eettiset periaatteet ja ihmistieteiden eettinen ennakkoarviointi Suomessa.

Tutkimuseettisen neuvottelukunnan julkaisuja 3/2019.

TENKin tutkimusetiikkaa koskevaa ohjeistus

Vastuullinen tiede -sivustoperhe

Sivustoperhe kokoaa yhteen Avoimen tieteen koordinaation, Julkaisufoorumin, Tiedonjulkistamisen neuvottelukunnan ja Tutkimuseettinen neuvottelukunnan sivut sekä vastuullisen tieteen artikkelit.

Humak’s Ethics Committee does not perform preliminary ethical assessments or provide official preliminary ethical statements. The goal of the committee is to strengthen and support Humak’s ethical culture in studies, education and research and development activities. Chief of Development Niina Nurkka is the chairperson for the committee.

Preliminary ethical assessment

A preliminary ethical assessment must be carried out for research when the research involves people, and these people may be subject to direct or indirect damage. The publication platform, the funder or the international collaboration may also require a preliminary assessment.

If research requires a preliminary ethical assessment, the Ethics Committee is requested to provide a statement before applying for a research permit and the Ethics Committee’s assent is attached to the permit application.
Ethical acceptability must always be assessed in advance in research settings that involve:
- Interfering with the research subject’s physical integrity.
- Deviating from the principles of informed consent (however, an assessment is not required for the research of public and published information, register and document data and archive data).
- Focusing on persons under the age of fifteen without separate consent from a guardian or informing them, according to which the guardian has the opportunity to forbid the child from participating in the research, and the research is not implemented as part of the regular activities of an early childhood care unit or school.
- Subjecting the research subjects to exceptionally strong stimuli for which the assessment of potential harm requires special expertise (e.g. studies involving violence or pornography).
- A risk of causing long-term mental detriment to subjects beyond the limits of normal daily life (trauma, depression, insomnia).
- Research, the implementation of which may pose a security risk to the subjects (e.g. research into domestic violence).