Codes of ethics

The Research Ethics Committee at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Social Work assesses whether research studies conducted within the Faculty of Social Work comply with the ethical rules and standards. The Committee's assessment is especially relevant for studies involving as the sources of data users of social services and other stakeholders in social work, social protection and the related fields.

The application for the ethics assessment of the research study shall be sent by the applicant in electronic form to the following e-mail eticna.komisija@fsd.uni-lj.si

First and second degree students shall prepare the ethics application based on the proposal of their supervisor. In the third degree study programme the decision shall be made by the Doctoral Student’s Supervisory Committee.

At all three degrees the student shall file the ethics application with the consent of their supervisor. The supervisor's consent shall be submitted in writing.

Structure and Form of the Ethics Application

The Application for the Ethics Assessment of the Research Study shall be prepared and submitted as an electronic document in A4 format of standard 12pt font size. The application should first give some basic information about the proposed research project, and then present the following elements:

1. Introduction (title of the research study, researcher, the responsible researcher or supervisor, key words, summary, theoretical starting points including the review of the most relevant literature, the expected contribution of the study to the development of science and practice).

2. Research plan (definition of the research problem, research questions / hypotheses / research aims, research approach, method and timeline).

3. Participants (method of sampling, number of participants, inclusion and exclusion criteria for participation in the research, how the participants will be invited to participate, how they will be informed about the study, will they receive any compensation for their participation, and what the compensation will consist of).

4. Data collecting and processing (measuring instruments employed and short description thereof, authorship of the instruments, verification of measurement characteristics, who will use and analyse the instruments, the planned statistical or qualitative data analysis procedures).

5. Informed consent for participation in the research study (how the consent will be obtained; if the consent cannot be obtained due to research content, the reasons should be given for the suspension of the obtainment of consent, and an explanation should be provided as to how their participation in the study will be presented to the participants and/or how the participants will be informed about the study after the conclusion of the procedure of data collection. The Participant Consent Form, shall be attached to the application.

6. Data protection and confidentiality (how data protection and confidentiality will be provided in the research).

7. Presentation of ethical aspects of the research study.

8. Risks and benefits of participating in the research.

9. Attachments:

Applicants who seek the ethics assessment of their research study, which is a part of their graduate, master or doctoral research project, can submit the approved research proposal of the graduate, master or doctoral thesis instead of the special application for the ethics assessment.

In this case they have to attach in a separate document any information about the research study relevant to its ethics assessment and which was not mentioned in the research proposal approval form.

Rules and codes:

Forms: