Ethics and Good Scientific Practice at BIGSSS

BIGSSS has a clear mission to foster sound empirical research and acknowledges that all research activities carried out by BIGSSS members should respect fundamental ethics principles, including those reflected in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2000/C 364/01). These principles include the need to ensure the freedom of research and the need to protect the physical and moral integrity of individuals.

For this reason, BIGSSS asks all its faculty members, postdoctoral and PhD fellows to commit to the proposed guidelines for Good Scientific Practice by the DFG as well as EU ethical standards when conducting their research in any country of the world.

To support high ethical standards and good scientific practice, BIGSSS cooperates with the Constructor University's ethics committee. With their expertise and guidance BIGSSS aims to raise PhD fellows' awareness with regard to the potential ethical demands of their projects, and to support them in living up to the required ethical standards when conducting their research.

Furthermore, BIGSSS PhD fellows take part in an Academic Integrity Workshop during their first semester at BIGSSS which covers questions of 1) academic integrity, 2) authorship rights and conflicts, 3) publication ethics, and 4) standards of academic writing.

Ethics Checks of BIGSSS Fellows' Research Projects

BIGSSS encourages high ethical standards in the empirical research projects conducted at BIGSSS. For this reason, BIGSSS has established its own internal BIGSSS Ethics Committee, and also cooperates with the ethics committees of its home universities. Fellows can request an ethical review of their research projects by the BIGSSS Ethics Committee, Constructor University's Ethics Committee, or the University of Bremen's Ethics Committee at any time, following the specific application procedures.

BIGSSS ethics commitee:

• Contact: ethics@bigsss-bremen.de
• Procedure: See the BIGSSS Wiki section on Ethics & Academic Conduct
• Please note that the review will take up to several weeks!

Constructor University ethics committee (CU-REC):

• Contact: ethics-chair@constructor.university
• Procedure: Constructor University Teamwork (login required)
• Please note that this only applies to BIGSSS fellows based at Constructor University, and will take up to several weeks!

University of Bremen ethics committee:

• Contact: jasmin.schmidt@vw.uni-bremen.de
• Procedure: UB ethics website
• Please note that the UB ethics committe has fixed dates for submitting applications and the procedure will take at least six weeks!