Open science and research ethics
Hanken’s strategic mission statement Opens in new window specifies that “[o]ur community is characterised by equity, openness and integrity, and a focus on high quality, continuous improvement, and sustainability.”
Open science and research
In August 2019, Hanken was among the first research institutions to sign the Declaration for Open Science and Research (Finland) 2020-2025 and is committed to following the strategic principles, objectives, and action plans outlined in the four Policies of Open Science and Research in Finland to achieve the goals set out in the Declaration.
As described in the principles and policies of research, Hanken is committed to actively promoting open science and research. In Hanken 2030 strategy, one of the five strategic overall goals is to “advocate responsibility and sustainability.” In a sub-strategy for research, one operationalization of this strategic goal is to “strongly encourage researchers’ efforts towards open science and open access of publications.” Accordingly, Key Performance Indicators for research include, inter alia, “share of peer-reviewed publications on an open access or a hybrid publication channel” and “share of publications with openly archived data.”
In terms of share of open access publications of scientific research articles, Hanken ranked in top 2 of Finnish universities (in 2018), with approximately 70% of article publications published open access. Read more here Opens in new window .
Guidelines for open science and research at Hanken
Hanken has been promoting different aspects of open science. The main objectives are to advance open access to research outputs including scientific publications, research data and methods, and responsible research assessment.
To continue to promote open science:
- Hanken endeavours to ensure that all the new annually reported peer-reviewed scientific articles are made available open access at time of publication, and that the archivable part of a thesis is openly accessible directly or upon request.
- Hanken encourages that properly documented metadata of research data are published for the findability and reproducibility of the research data through, for example, the national Fairdata Qvain metadata tool Opens in new window . Research data are to be archived and opened in national or international repositories when possible.
- Hanken encourages the school’s researchers to make their analysis and research methods generally available and to open up the research process as early and widely as possible.
- Hanken has signed San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) agreement and is implementing its CoARA Action Plan in responsible research assessment. Open science practices are recognized in research assessment of both individual researchers and research performing organizations.
For the full text of Hanken's Guidelines for Open Science and Research (2024, 3rd version), see the PDF file below:
See also the LibGuide on Open science Opens in new window which offers information on the development, principles, and practices of different aspects of open science.
Research integrity and ethics
Hanken is committed to complying with the general ethical guidelines of Finnish National Board on Research Integrity Opens in new window , as well as its ethical principles of research with human participants in human and behavioural sciences in particular Opens in new window .
As part of these commitments, Hanken has appointed a Research Ethics Committee, which supports Hanken’s Rector in decision-making related to suspicions about research integrity/ethics of Hanken-affiliated researchers, and allegations of their violations of responsible conduct of research (RCR).
With respect to the commitment to the latter ethical principles of research with human participants Opens in new window , the Research Ethics Committee also serves as the ‘human sciences ethics committee’, of which Hanken-affiliated researchers must request an Ethical Review statement in advance, in case their research plan involves one of the following six aspects:
- Participation in the research deviates from the principle of informed consent. (E.g., participation is not voluntary, or the subjects/participants of the research are not given information about being part of a research.);
- The research involves intervening in the physical integrity of research participants.
- The focus of the research is on minors under the age of fifteen, without separate consent from a parent or carer, or without informing a parent or carer in a way that would enable them to prevent the child’s participation in the research.
- Research that exposes participants to exceptionally strong stimuli.
- Research that involves a risk of causing mental harm that exceeds the limits of normal daily life to the research participants or their family members or others closest to them.
- Conducting the research could involve a threat to the safety of participants or researchers or their family members or others closest to them.
Hanken regularly reminds its researchers about their responsibility for responsible and ethical conduct of research in general, as well as the requirement to submit a request for Ethical Review to the Research Ethics Committee in particular – in case their research plan involves one of the six features above. Instructions about this are incorporated in the guidelines for research data management, available for all researchers in an easily readable format, as a libguide Opens in new window .
The same libguide Opens in new window also includes guidelines for researchers on how to comply with regulations, in case their research data includes personal data (incl. European General Data Protection Regulation GDPR and Finnish national regulations). Notice, though, that the legal basis for processing personal data in most research projects of Hanken’s researchers is ‘scientific research carried out in the public interest as defined in Finnish Data Protection Act’ in general – not ‘informed consent’ obtained from research participants for each data variable in particular.
Nevertheless, researchers are required to (a) keep a Record of Data Processing Activities for all research involving human participants, in which they provide general characterization of the personal and other data to be processed in the study, as well as (b) to inform the research participants of the processing of their personal data fulfilling the information provision obligation required by the GDPR and to ask for their informed consent to participate in the study at the general level (even though not necessarily asking for their informed consent for each data variable in particular).
In other words, the informed consent that Hanken-affiliated researchers are asking from their research participants is aligned with the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity’s interpretation of ‘informed consent’ as the need to inform the research participants about their being involved in a scientific study as well as providing them with sufficient and correct information about the nature of the study at the general level.
This ‘informed consent’ does not, however, refer to ‘informed consent’ as a ‘legal basis’ for personal data processing as defined in GDPR (i.e., explicit informed consent for each personal data variable processed). Instead of such data-variable specific ‘informed consent’, the legal basis of most research projects of Hanken’s researchers is ‘scientific research carried out in the public interest as defined in Finnish Data Protection Act’.