Ethics in Research Data Management

Data ethics, protection and security challenges as well as research integrity issues are closely related to the Open Science strategy, which aims to promote transparency and reusability of research data and knowledge transfer.  

The Data Stewards in the Open Science Team support researchers at the University of Bern and Bern University Hospital by offering regular training courses  and upon request. We support you by advising on how to collect, reuse, process, store, share and publish research data according to the best research practice, legal regulations, funding agencies requirements and ethical standards in Open Science.  

Data security IT-Department, University of Bern (German version only, Pdf)

• Legal service office of the University of Bern (data protection, legal questions) E-Mail
• Unitectra supports researchers in the commercialization of research results into new products and services (patents, licenses), in the negotiation of research agreements as well as in the creation of a spin-off company E-Mail

Data protection and research in general: EDÖB (addresses federal bodies and private persons, here for general information in German, French and Italian only). Researchers at the University of Bern must normally comply with the Cantonal Data Protection Act).

European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Introductory Ordinance to the EU Data Protection Directive 2016/680 on the protection of personal data (Introductory Ordinance to the EU Data Protection Directive) of the Canton of Bern.

The data protection laws of some countries are recognized as equivalent to those of Switzerland (Transborder data flows).

Personal data is information about specific or identifiable natural or legal persons. The Data Protection Act of the Canton of Bern (KDSG) serves to protect individuals from improper data processing by authorities.

If you collect, analyze or otherwise process personal data in your research project with the help of IT applications (e.g. self-programmed apps, but also applications such as Qualtrics or RedCap), it may be necessary to draw up a concept for handling information security and data protection (ISDP).

Such a concept serves to clarify the requirements and existing or to be developed technical solutions in this area, as well as, if necessary, as the basis for control by the data protection authorities of the canton. The legal basis for this is the data protection legislation of the Canton of Bern, in particular, the Data Protection Act (KDSG), Art. 17a. The "Directives on Data Protection in the IT Sector of the University of Bern" must be followed (Link).

For information and advice on legal matters, please contact the Legal Services of the University of Bern, and for IT security matters and for filling out the relevant forms, please contact the IT Services. 

Research projects involving humans that fall under the Human Research Act (HRA) must be reviewed by ethics committees (e.g. animal experiment ethics SAMS or Cantonal Ethics Committee (CEC)). Please note that such a review may take approximately 60-90 days. For more information on the procedure, process and management of such projects, please visit the portal on human research in Switzerland Kofam.

Research projects that do not fall under the Human Research Act can be approved by the Ethics Committees of the University of Bern Phil.-hum., Phil.-hist., WISO und Animal Welfare Office UniBE.

For information on research that falls under the Human Research Act, please refer to the "Ethics – Research with humans" tab. Information on research involving animals can be found under the "Ethics – Research with animals" tab. Information on working with genetic resources or their associated traditional knowledge can be found under the tab "Ethics – Research with genetic resources". More information can be found under Research Compliance and Good Research Practice.

Read more about ethics via forschungsdaten.info