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To determine whether or not you should submit an application to the HAW Hamburg Ethics Commission, please use the Ethics self-assessment checklist.

Applications that fall under the legal stipulations of section 40, paragraph 1 of the Medicinal Products Act (AMG); section 20, paragraph 1 of the Medical Products Act (MPG); or sections 8 or 9 of the Stem Cell Act (StZG) should be submitted to the legally responsible ethics commission. Furthermore, professional codes of ethics for various professions, such as physicians, may specify additional regulations and jurisdictions.

Professors, academic staff members or sessional instructors at HAW Hamburg who are the lead researchers in a research project can submit an application.

Students and doctoral students at HAW Hamburg can also submit an ethics application for final theses and dissertations (Bachelor's or Master's thesis, doctoral dissertation). These applications also need to be signed by the supervising HAW Hamburg professor.

The head of the commission asks two members of the commission to each generate a preliminary statement on the application within three weeks. Once these have been received, they are circulated among and voted on by the other commission members. The finalised statements are subsequently communicated by the administrative office to the individual/s who submitted the application. They can be one of the following: a positive statement without conditions, a positive statement with conditions (conditional positive statement), or a negative statement.

In the case of a positive or negative statement, the applicant receives a direct response. In the case of a conditional positive statement, the applicant will be asked to revise the application. Following submission of the revised version, the administrative office will make a decision in consultation with the chairperson within two weeks regarding whether

a) the revisions need to be reviewed again by the members who generated the preliminary statements and by the commission,
b) or a statement can be communicated to the applicants without involving the commission as a whole again.

Subsequently, one of the following takes place: (a) renewed involvement of the commission in accordance with the procedure outlined above, or (b) response to the applicant. In most cases option (a) is what usually takes place.

Please note: There may be processing delays during lecture-free periods.

The commission can make one of the following statements:

• Confirmation that there are 'no ethical concerns, without qualification' 
• An assessment of the research project as having 'no ethical concerns' which is, however, accompanied by specific conditions that the applicant is required to observe
• An assessment of the research project as having 'ethical issues' which provides the applicant with the opportunity to submit a revised version of the application

The ethical responsibility of the lead researcher remains unaffected by the statement.

Applications can be submitted at any time. However, they must be submitted before the beginning of the research work. A retroactive review is not possible.

• Please plan for a processing time of three to six weeks.
• Applications to the HAW Hamburg Ethics Commission are free of charge.
• Any inquiries for the commission should be submitted via the administrative office: ethikkommission (at) haw-hamburg (dot) de
• The application can be submitted using the form below and consists of one PDF document.

Templates for the ethics application

• Ethics self-assessment checklist (Please use this checklist to assess whether you need to submit an ethics application.)
• Ethics application form (Please fill out the entire ethics application and submit it together with the additional documents required as one PDF document.)

Additional information

• Declaration of confidentiality – template (PDF)
• Data protection
  • Data protection and data processing in scientific studies (Word)