Ethics review of your EIC Accelerator project

Every proposal being considered for funding is assessed in regard to its ethical aspects. If the assessment concludes that ethical aspects have not been addressed sufficiently in the proposal stage, ethics requirements will be added to the project as contractual obligations.

This article gives an overview of the process for ethics review of EIC Accelerator projects and will help you understand the different steps, consequences and duties.

Ethics assessment and outcomes

During the proposal stage, projects must conduct an Ethics Self-Assessment by completing the Ethics Issues checklist. You have to indicate whether your project will involve any listed issues and if so, where in your proposal you address them and which documents you provide. The answers will be reviewed by independent ethics experts and/or qualified staff working in a panel.

There are five outcomes of an ethics review:

1. No ethics issues

The ethics assessment confirmed that the project does not raise any ethics issues and no further actions are needed.

2. Ethics clearance

The project receives an ethics clearance (the proposal is ‘ethics ready’) meaning that the raised ethics issues are addressed appropriately. No further actions are needed.

3. Conditional ethics clearance

If ethics issues have not been addressed sufficiently, the ethics clearance can be subject to conditions. As such, ethics requirements are added to the project which are listed in the ethics summary report. Ethics requirements must be complied with either during the grant preparation or during the project. In the latter case, ethics deliverables will be added to the project and included in the grant agreement as part of an automatically generated work package called ‘ethics requirements’.

4. Additional information requested

In case of complex ethics issues or missing information, you may be required to provide additional information to complete the ethics review.

5. No ethics clearance

If the ethics review panel does not give the ethics clearance, the proposal is not eligible for funding and will be rejected.

Throughout the project, the compliance with ethical principles is monitored and additional information may be requested or recommendations given to ensure that the project continues to adhere to ethical standards.

If you are unsure about how to handle the outcome of your ethics review, don’t hesitate to contact us at: hello@getpolite.eu.