Think about ethics at the beginning of the research process

Since 2018 Anu Helkkula has worked as Hanken’s Research Integrity Officer. She provides support in questions regarding ethics and responsible conduct of research.

According to Helkkula, everyone who carries out research at any level should consider the ethical aspects. Ethics should be present during the whole process, from writing your research plan to the collecting, processing and publication of results. Some research areas demand extra vigilance.

“It’s important to retain the informant’s integrity, to ensure that you cannot recognise the person from the research material. And beyond this, everything involving children or healthcare must be under careful ethical consideration”, says Helkkula.

The Finnish National Board of Research Integrity (TENK) has educated support persons for research ethics since 2017 and according to the Board, every university should have a Research Integrity Officer. This should make it easy for all researchers to receive information about research ethics, since not everyone knows the rules of responsible conduct of research.

Some research areas require ethical review and Helkkula emphasises that researchers should read the instructions found on the website of The Finnish National Board of Research Integrity. Hanken has its own internal instructions and some research projects might require a statement from Hanken’s Ethics Committee before starting the actual research.

This is an article from the Hanken magazine 1/2019. Please read the whole magazine here.