What is this about? (Is About)
From The Embassy of Good Science
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The first online training session of the CHANGER Project, titled ''[https://changer-project.eu/changer-project-trainings-1-electronic-informed-consent-in-research/ Electronic Informed Consent in Research]'', was successfully held on 4 May 2026, bringing together experts and members of Research Ethics Committees from across Europe.
The training addressed key ethical, legal, and practical challenges related to the use of electronic informed consent (eConsent) in contemporary research environments. Participants explored how digital tools and emerging technologies are transforming informed consent procedures, while also raising important questions regarding autonomy, accessibility, data protection, transparency, and participant understanding.
The session formed part of CHANGER’s broader effort to strengthen ethics review practices and support ethics-by-design approaches in research and innovation. The training also contributed to the project’s objective of equipping ethics review experts with practical knowledge and tools to address challenges arising from evolving research practices and new technologies.
The event featured expert presentations, interactive discussions, and case-based reflections on the implementation and evaluation of eConsent processes in research settings. Participants exchanged experiences and perspectives on ensuring meaningful informed consent in increasingly digital and data-driven research environments.
The recording of the training session is now available online, together with the presentations delivered by the speakers:
* Watch the training video: https://youtu.be/FeGu_lCeXC4
* Download the presentations: [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/01.-Alice-intro-info-consent.pdf Definition and main requirements of informed consent], [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Janos-Meszaros-eIC-legal.pdf Legal landscape: EU regulations], [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/02.-Borry-informed-consent-ethical-landscape.pdf Ethical landscape: challenges and solutions], [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/03.-Kaat-case-study.pdf Case presentation]
The CHANGER Team would like to warmly thank all speakers and participants for their valuable contributions and active engagement.
The project will continue its training activities with the upcoming online training ''“[https://changer-project.eu/changer-trainings-gene-editing-in-research/ Gene Editing in Research]”'', taking place on 8 June 2026. The training will explore ethical, legal, and societal challenges associated with gene editing technologies and their application in research contexts. More information and registration details are available [https://changer-project.eu/changer-trainings-gene-editing-in-research/ here].
For more information about CHANGER training activities, follow the project on social media and subscribe to our newsletter!<div><div></div></div><div></div><div></div>
The first online training session of the CHANGER Project, titled ''[https://changer-project.eu/changer-project-trainings-1-electronic-informed-consent-in-research/ Electronic Informed Consent in Research]'', was successfully held on 4 May 2026, bringing together experts and members of Research Ethics Committees from across Europe.
The training addressed key ethical, legal, and practical challenges related to the use of electronic informed consent (eConsent) in contemporary research environments. Participants explored how digital tools and emerging technologies are transforming informed consent procedures, while also raising important questions regarding autonomy, accessibility, data protection, transparency, and participant understanding.
The session formed part of CHANGER’s broader effort to strengthen ethics review practices and support ethics-by-design approaches in research and innovation. The training also contributed to the project’s objective of equipping ethics review experts with practical knowledge and tools to address challenges arising from evolving research practices and new technologies.
The event featured expert presentations, interactive discussions, and case-based reflections on the implementation and evaluation of eConsent processes in research settings. Participants exchanged experiences and perspectives on ensuring meaningful informed consent in increasingly digital and data-driven research environments.
The recording of the training session is now available online, together with the presentations delivered by the speakers:
* Watch the training video: https://youtu.be/FeGu_lCeXC4
* Download the presentations: [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/01.-Alice-intro-info-consent.pdf Definition and main requirements of informed consent], [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Janos-Meszaros-eIC-legal.pdf Legal landscape: EU regulations], [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/02.-Borry-informed-consent-ethical-landscape.pdf Ethical landscape: challenges and solutions], [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/03.-Kaat-case-study.pdf Case presentation]
The CHANGER Team would like to warmly thank all speakers and participants for their valuable contributions and active engagement.
The project will continue its training activities with the upcoming online training ''“[https://changer-project.eu/changer-trainings-gene-editing-in-research/ Gene Editing in Research]”'', taking place on 8 June 2026. The training will explore ethical, legal, and societal challenges associated with gene editing technologies and their application in research contexts. More information and registration details are available [https://changer-project.eu/changer-trainings-gene-editing-in-research/ here].
For more information about CHANGER training activities, follow the project on social media and subscribe to our newsletter!<div><div></div></div><div></div><div></div>
On 8 June 2026, the CHANGER Project successfully delivered its second online training session as part of the Intensive Course for the Framework Programme ethics appraisal scheme. The session, titled ''Gene Editing in Research'', brought together participants from across the research ethics community to explore recent developments in gene therapy and the challenges these innovations pose for research ethics review.
The interactive training provided participants with a comprehensive overview of gene editing technologies, including the distinction between germline and somatic gene editing, and examined the current legal and regulatory landscape, with a particular focus on the European context. Discussions also addressed key ethical considerations surrounding gene therapy, including questions of equity and fairness, the assessment of risks and benefits, and the complexities of obtaining meaningful informed consent in rapidly evolving areas of biomedical research.
An important part of the session was dedicated to understanding the patient perspective, highlighting the experiences, expectations and concerns of individuals and communities affected by gene therapy developments.
To encourage practical application of the concepts discussed, the training concluded with a case-study exercise. Participants worked in breakout groups to analyse a research protocol involving gene therapy, identify potential ethical issues, and reflect on the role of research ethics committees in evaluating such proposals. The exercise stimulated lively discussion and provided valuable insights into the challenges of reviewing cutting-edge research involving gene editing technologies.
The recording of the training session is now available online, together with the presentations delivered by the speakers:
* Watch the training video: https://youtu.be/n5Tnfodtfk4
* Download the presentations: [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/02.-Pascal-Borry_gene-editing-general-introduction.pdf Pascal Borry_gene editing general introduction], [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/03.-Margaux-Reckelbus_Gene-therapy-legal-landscape.pdf Margaux Reckelbus_Gene therapy legal landscape,] [https://changer-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/05.-Phaedra-Loquet_gene-therapy-patients-perspectives-and-case-study.pdf Phaedra Loquet_gene therapy patients’ perspectives and case study]
The session forms part of CHANGER’s ongoing efforts to strengthen ethics review capacity and support research ethics committees in addressing emerging ethical issues arising from scientific and technological innovation.
For more information about CHANGER training activities, follow the project on social media and subscribe to our newsletter!
These guidelines provide detailed guidance for research institutions, providing standards and best practices for institutions to implement to facilitate the conduct of good, ethical scientific research. +
The ''CIRAD Code of Ethics'' (December 2017) sets out the ethical principles, rules, and responsibilities guiding all professional activities within CIRAD, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development. The document emphasizes that research must benefit society and be conducted with integrity, transparency, and responsibility to maintain public trust. It defines ethical standards for scientific integrity, including honesty, impartiality, reliability of data, respect for diversity, non-discrimination, and responsible partnerships. The Code clarifies the roles and duties of General Management, managers, and employees, and addresses issues such as conflicts of interest, research misconduct, whistleblowing, and freedom of expression. A specific focus is placed on research-for-development partnerships, particularly with countries in the Global South, ensuring fairness, mutual benefit, respect for local cultures, sustainable development, and alignment with international ethical standards. Overall, the Code serves as a framework to guide ethical decision-making and professional conduct across CIRAD’s research, partnerships, and institutional operations. +
COALESCE is a four-year European project (2023–2027) focused on creating a European Competence Centre for Science Communication along with a Science Communication Academy. Its goal is to strengthen the connection between science and society by improving the quality, accessibility, and impact of science communication across Europe. The project works to build trust in research and counter misinformation by developing evidence-based resources, tools, and training programs co-created with scientists, communicators, policymakers, journalists, and civil society. Although the Competence Centre will operate virtually, it is supported by national and regional hubs that bring together diverse expertise. By integrating knowledge from past initiatives and promoting inclusive, interdisciplinary approaches, COALESCE aims to professionalize science communication and make it more effective and socially responsive across Europe. +
CODE OF ETHICS FOR RESEARCH WORKERS (2017) is a national framework authored by nan, in english, targeting nan. Originating from Poland, it aims to formalise principles of research integrity and open practice. It emphasises honesty, accountability, professional courtesy, and stewardship of resources, linking these values to reproducibility, credibility, and societal trust in research. The text covers responsibilities of researchers, institutions, funders, and journals, spelling out expectations for good practice in planning, conducting, publishing, and reviewing research. Common provisions include clear authorship criteria, proper citation and acknowledgement, management of conflicts of interest, transparency of methods and data, responsible supervision, and fair peer review. It also establishes procedures for handling breaches of integrity, defining misconduct, and setting up investigation mechanisms that ensure due process, proportional sanctions, and learning opportunities. By aligning with international standards, it connects local policy to global norms, reinforcing mobility of researchers and comparability of practices across borders. The document integrates the principle of education—training for students and staff on responsible conduct—ensuring that integrity is taught as a core skill rather than assumed knowledge. It also incorporates guidance on emerging issues such as data management, digital tools, open science, and new forms of dissemination, embedding integrity in contemporary workflows. Practical tools often include checklists, codes of behaviour, reporting templates, and FAQs, translating high-level principles into day-to-day actions. The intended audience spans researchers, supervisors, institutions, and policymakers, all of whom need clarity on their roles in safeguarding the credibility of research. Equity and diversity appear as cross-cutting themes, recognising that integrity involves creating inclusive environments free from discrimination, harassment, or exploitation. Overall, the resource situates research integrity as both a personal commitment and an institutional responsibility, embedding it into the full research cycle from design to dissemination. Annexes may provide case studies, historical context, and references to international declarations such as Singapore or Montreal statements. Definitions and glossaries support consistent interpretation, and contact points or ombudsperson systems are described to lower barriers to reporting. These features help the resource serve not only as a policy but also as a practical handbook.
The ''Code of Ethics for Scientists'' (2017) is Latvia’s national framework for promoting research integrity and open scientific practice. It sets out core values of honesty, accountability, professional courtesy, and responsible use of resources, linking them to reproducibility, credibility, and public trust in science. The code outlines expectations for researchers, supervisors, institutions, funders, and journals in planning, conducting, publishing, and reviewing research. It establishes clear rules on authorship, citation, conflict of interest management, supervision, and fair peer review, while also defining misconduct and procedures for investigation with proportional sanctions and learning outcomes. Education is emphasised, ensuring that students and staff are trained in responsible conduct as an essential skill. The code addresses emerging challenges such as open science, digital tools, data management, and new dissemination practices, embedding integrity in contemporary research workflows. Equity and diversity are highlighted as integral to integrity, fostering inclusive environments free from discrimination and harassment. Practical tools such as checklists, templates, and FAQs support day-to-day application. Annexes provide case studies, international references, and contact points for reporting, making the code both a policy framework and a practical handbook. +
The ''Code of Ethics of the Croatian Science Foundation'' (2018), authored by the Croatian Science Foundation, is a national framework promoting research integrity in Croatia. Written in Croatian and targeting researchers, institutions, and funders, it formalises principles of honesty, accountability, professional courtesy, and stewardship of resources, linking them to reproducibility, credibility, and societal trust. It defines responsibilities across the research cycle, including authorship, citation, conflict-of-interest management, transparent methods and data, responsible supervision, and fair peer review. The framework also outlines procedures for addressing misconduct, ensuring due process, proportional sanctions, and opportunities for learning. By aligning with international declarations such as the Singapore and Montreal statements, it connects Croatian practice to global norms, reinforcing mobility and comparability. Education and training are emphasised to instil integrity as a core skill, while guidance covers open science, digital tools, and data management. Equity and diversity are integrated as cross-cutting themes. Combining principles with practical tools, glossaries, and reporting systems, it serves as both policy and handbook. +
CONCISE is a Horizon 2020 project that investigates how science communication shapes European citizens’ beliefs, perceptions, and knowledge about controversial science topics like vaccines, complementary and alternative medicine, GMOs, and climate change. It carried out deliberative public consultations with about 500 participants across five EU countries Portugal, Spain, Italy, Slovakia, and Poland, to explore which communication channels people trust, how they form their opinions, and how to foster more effective, inclusive, and trustworthy dialogue between scientists, media, policy makers, and the general public. +
This is a collection of case studies on publication ethics developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The collection is constantly updated with new cases which are submitted by COPE members. +
This COPE's guide provides basic principles regarding patient's consent for publishing medical case reports. It informs about what information needs to be collected and gives several examples of these forms. +
The COPE core practices are guidelines for all stakeholders involved in academic publishing. They replaced COPE’s previous code of conduct and may be used in addition to national codes of conduct. +
The flowcharts are designed to help editors follow COPE’s Core Practices and implement its advice when faced with cases of suspected misconduct and have been translated into a number of different languages'"`UNIQ--ref-00000000-QINU`"'. +
These educational recourses provide recording of COPE seminars, webinars and COPE PPT presentations. They can serve as introduction regarding all research integrity issues related to publication ethics. +
CROATIAN OPEN ACCESS DECLARATION (2012) is a national resource produced by Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, written in croatian, and intended for stakeholders in Croatia. It synthesizes expectations for open science and open access within Croatia, translating high‑level principles into actionable guidance for researchers, institutions, funders and publishers. The document frames openness as a default—tempered by considerations of ethics, privacy, intellectual property, and security—and promotes the maxim of being as open as possible and as closed as necessary. It links openness to research quality, reproducibility, speed of translation, and equitable access to knowledge, particularly for communities with limited subscription access. Core elements typically covered include open access to publications with clear routes to compliance, preferred licensing such as Creative Commons, the use of persistent identifiers, and deposition of the accepted manuscript or version of record in trusted repositories. The guidance also references FAIR data principles and encourages data management plans that specify stewardship, metadata standards, and repository selection. On the operational side, the resource explains responsibilities for authors and host institutions, including acknowledging funding, retaining rights where feasible, and budgeting for publication costs only when necessary. Embargoes, where still allowed, are circumscribed and justified, and exceptions exist for sensitive, commercial, or security‑relevant data;these exceptions are documented through transparent waiver or justification processes. To support adoption, the document points to enabling infrastructure—repositories, registries, discovery services, and research information systems—that help automate compliance and improve the visibility of outputs. It often aligns with or references international efforts such as Plan S, the European Open Science Cloud, or national repository networks, situating local practice within a broader, interoperable ecosystem. Assessment and monitoring are addressed through reporting requirements, progress indicators, and compliance checks at grant reporting or institutional review stages. Rather than counting publications alone, emphasis is placed on the quality of openness: machine‑readable metadata, persistent links, transparent methods, and, where appropriate, sharing of code and data under well‑described licences. The audience for the resource spans researchers who need practical steps to comply;research managers who design workflows and training;librarians and repository managers who provide infrastructure;and policymakers seeking to harmonise national strategies. Examples and FAQs translate policy statements into tangible actions, covering preprints, rights retention statements, and the handling of third‑party content. Equity is treated as a cross‑cutting theme: the document encourages zero‑embargo access when feasible, recognises the burden of author‑facing publication charges, and highlights publisher‑agnostic routes such as repositories and community‑owned platforms. It underscores that openness without attention to inclusion can reinforce disparities, and therefore pairs access with capacity building and multilingual communication where possible. Responsible openness features prominently, requiring safeguards for participants and communities, especially when dealing with personal, health, or Indigenous data. The resource endorses governance mechanisms—ethics oversight, data access committees, and secure environments—that balance public value with legitimate protections, while promoting transparency about any restrictions that remain. Implementation relies on clear roles and timelines. Researchers are encouraged to plan for openness at project inception;institutions to provide training and repository services;and funders to underwrite core infrastructure rather than pay‑per‑article charges where avoidable. Publishers are invited to support author rights, interoperability, and machine‑readable licensing and metadata. For practitioners, the value of CROATIAN OPEN ACCESS DECLARATION lies in its specificity and coherence: it gathers dispersed rules into one dependable reference, connects them to global norms, and explains how to demonstrate compliance without excessive administrative load.
Two authors wrote to an editorial committee to ask whether they could publish a paper anonymously. The authors work in a general practice, producing research that showed the health-related problems arising from the practice switching one of its contracts from one laboratory to another. The authors did not want to be perceived as assigning blame to any single party. The committee declined to publish the paper anonymously. This is a factual anonymized case. +
The Responsible Conduct of Research Framework describes policies and requirements related to applying for and managing funds from three Canadian Agencies (the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)). Requirements related to performing research, disseminating results, and the processes that institutions and agencies must follow in the event of an allegation of a breach of policy are also outlined.
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This is a factual case discussing the Kennedy Krieger lead paint study, where a United States Court of Appeals condemned what it called a “non-therapeutic research programme” using children. The court ruled that a parent cannot consent to the participation of a child in “non-therapeutic” research in the state of Maryland . The case involves issues that had been given little attention by the courts, such as children’s participation in research, proxy consent, and the duties of medical researchers towards their participants. The analysis includes a discussion of the relevance of the “therapeutic” versus “non-therapeutic” importance and value of a study, as well as cost-benefit analysis, the design of research, and study aims. +
This statement, developed at the 7th World Conference on Research Integrity in Cape Town in May 2023, outlines 20 recommendations aimed at improving fairness and equity in research practices, from conception right through to implementation. +
