Human rights and ethical principles

Human rights

In the context of research funded by the European Commission, the key sources of EU and international law are:

• the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union;
• the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its Protocols.

Other important sources are: 

• the UN Declaration of Human Rights; 
• the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD). 

Ethical Principles

Central policies and widely accepted declarations that codify principles of research ethics and ethical treatment of research participants include:  

• the Nuremberg Code (Wikipedia);  
• the Helsinki Declaration (Wikipedia); and  
• the Belmont Report (Wikipedia).  

Although these codes originate in the biomedical field, they encompass the central principles that apply to all human research.  

The basic ethical principles that have evolved to protect human participants from harm, which have their origin in clinical research, apply to all fields of research in which humans participate by contributing time, effort, insights and personal data for researchers’ use. These overarching ethical principles in the context of EU-funded research include: 

• respecting human dignity and integrity 
• ensuring honesty and transparency towards research subjects 
• respecting individual autonomy and obtaining free and informed consent (as well as permission whenever relevant) 
• protecting vulnerable individuals 
• ensuring privacy and confidentiality 
• promoting justice and inclusiveness 
• minimising harm and maximising benefit 
• sharing the benefits with disadvantaged populations, especially if the research is being carried out in developing countries 
• respecting and protecting the environment and future generations.

It is important to guarantee safe conditions for research participation for people who may benefit from research, but also for researchers themselves. 

EUR policy 

In EUR policy the above returns as follows:

Research conducted by EUR researchers that involves: 

1. Human beings 
2. (Special categories of) personal data 
3. Non-EU countries 
4. Environment, health and safety issues, including potential harm to researchers 
5. Potential misuse of research results 
6. Potential conflict of interest 
7. An external organisation, among which funding organisations 

needs to undergo ethical review by a relevant and independent committee.