Research Ethics and Ethical Review

If you plan to conduct research involving people or the processing of personal data, you may need to apply for ethical permission under the Act Concerning the Ethical Review of Research Involving Humans.

The purpose of the Act is to protect the individual and the respect for human dignity in research. Research may be approved only if it can be carried out with respect for human dignity and an approval from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority must be in place before the research can begin.

Research conducted at Lund University must respect the laws and rules in the country in which the research is carried out, but these are not to be used to justify ethically indefensible research. Lund University therefore 2021-03-25, decided on a regulation governing the university’s research abroad. The regulation aims to ensure that the university’s researchers live up to a standard at least equivalent to that which applies in Sweden when conducting research in other countries. You can find the regulation on the Lund University Staff Pages.

Several of the faculty's researchers are active in different types of ethics committees, both at Lund University and at regional and national levels. There is also a research collaboration with researchers in ethics at Lund University. From 2021, a special course on ethics will be mandatory for all doctoral students at Lund University.

On 2019-05-29, the Faculty Board decided on guidelines on ethical review. The faculty has also established a work-group on ethical considerations, led by the Pro Dean. For questions about ethical considerations, please contact Pro Dean Titti Mattsson, Professor Christian Dahlman or Professor Vilhelm Persson.

Guidelines on ethical review are included in the section for the Faculty's strategies and guidelines.

Research Representative

Associate Professor Björn Petersson, Department of Philosophy, has been appointed scientific representative for the joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology and the Faculty of Law for the period 2019-10-23--2022-10-22.

Employees at the joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology and the Faculty of Law have the opportunity to turn to Petersson for advice in matters concerning good scientific practice, such as questions regarding publication, author responsibility or research collaborations.

Research representative is a new role decided on in May 2019 by the Vice-Chancellor. Each faculty is responsible for appointing their representative. The research representatives report annually to the faculty management and are part of a faculty-wide network.