Research integrity

Utrecht University’s mission is to provide an academic education to young people and carry out groundbreaking research. An organisational culture of diligence and integrity is crucial here. In a diligent and ethical organisational culture, employees have a critical attitude and can hold each other accountable for shortcomings.

Talking to someone about research integrity

Having doubts about your own approach in your research? Or do you suspect that someone else is manipulating data or sources, presenting results incorrectly, handling data carelessly or is dependent on political or commercial influences, for example? It is important not to keep this to yourself but to contact us and discuss the situation. Visit this page to find out where to turn.

Codes of Conduct

First of all, scrupulousness and integrity are researchers and students' personal responsibilities. In order to encourage and monitor this responsibility, Utrecht University has set principles and goals in a Code of Conduct: the Code of Conduct for Scrupulous Research Practice and Integrity (pdf). This Code of Conduct is an addition to the Netherlands Code of Conduct for Research Integrity 2018 (pdf) of the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (Vereniging van Universiteiten, VSNU).

Ethical review for research on humans

When it comes to medical scientific research on humans, ethical review is required by law. For this, you can turn to the Medisch Ethische Toetsingscommissie (Dutch website).

Faculty's Ethical Review Committee (FETC)

More and often, ethical reviews are also requested for non-medical academic research that involves human test subjects (such as observations, interviews, questionnaires, tasks or experiments). That is why Utrecht University has Faculty's Ethical Review Committees (FETCs). The FETC provides a professional, ethical and independent review of proposals for research on humans and advises on this. UU researchers can find a roadmap to Ethics Assessment on Intranet (after login).

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