Research involving humans and personal data
ETH Zurich wants to protect human participants in research and the scientific use of their data in the best possible way.
Ethical evaluation
Research projects involving humans, or their personal data, are regulated by law. Such projects may only be initiated once they have been evaluated and approved by an ethics commission. The ethical evaluation seeks to ensure compliance with legal requirements and to protect the physical and mental integrity of participants. This means appropriately informing those persons of the purpose of the research project and obtaining their consent to participation or use of their data.
Jurisdiction
Research projects must be assessed by a Cantonal Ethics Commission if they fall within the scope of the Human Research Act or corresponding ordinances. This covers research involving persons (living or deceased), their health-related personal data or biological material, embryos or fetuses, to investigate:
- physical and mental human diseases
- structure and function (anatomy and physiology) of the human body
All other human research projects are evaluated by the ETH Zurich Ethics Commission. This includes research using personal data, i.e. data relating to specific or identifiable individuals and collected, for example, through interviews, group discussions or surveys.
Studies using anonymised biological material, anonymously collected or anonymised health-related data and anonymised personal data may not require official approval. Please contact the office of the relevant ethics commission.
The Secretariat of the ETH Zurich Ethics Commission also answers questions regarding applications to the commission and its remit.
- Downloadvertical_align_bottom Federal Act on Research Involving Human Beings (HRA)
- Downloadvertical_align_bottom Ordinance on Research on Human Subjects with the Exception of Clinical Trials (HRO)
- Downloadvertical_align_bottom Ordinance on Clinical Trials in Human Research (ClinO)
- Downloadvertical_align_bottom Ordinance on Clinical Trials with Medical Devices (CTO-MedD)
- Downloadvertical_align_bottom Therapeutic Products Act (TPA)
- Downloadvertical_align_bottom Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP)
- Downloadvertical_align_bottom Reglement der Ethikkommission der ETH Zürich (Regulations of the ETH Zurich Ethics Commission, RSETHZ 413); available only in German
- If you are uncertain about your ethics application, especially if submitting it for the first time, contact the Secretariat of the ETH Ethics Commission first. This helps to avoid rejections, unnecessary applications and revision work after submission.
- Allow sufficient time in your research plan for submitting the ethics application (at least eight weeks), as you may only start recruiting participants after approval. Master’s and Bachelor’s projects are assessed more quickly – please consult the Research with Human Participants website.
- If you are obtaining biological materials or personal data from commercial suppliers, these must have been collected in accordance with the ETH Zurich guidelines and the statutory regulations under Swiss law. If your supplier is based abroad, a contract must be drawn up to ensure that the domestic law enforces compliance with these standards. If this is not the case, compliance must be contractually sealed. For certain countries, it can be assumed that their domestic law concurs with Swiss law.
Philipp Emch, +41 44 632 85 72
Zora Muriel Schmid, +41 44 632 39 54
Office of Research
ethics@sl.ethz.ch