EPFL Human Research Ethics Committee HREC
© 2013 EPFL
The mission of the EPFL Human Research Ethics Committee's (HREC) is to ensure that non-invasive human research projects conducted at EPFL are designed in compliance with the fundamental ethical principles of respect for persons, beneficience and justice and the principles deriving therefrom, such as consideration of benefits and risks, informed consent of participants, privacy and data protection.
HREC was created on January 14th, 2013, and its bylaws were adopted on October 28th, 2013, thus ensuring a transparent procedure.
All projects involving human participants must be designed and carried out in compliance with ethical principles. In general, these projects are subject to review by the Commission cantonale (VD) d'éthique de la recherche sur l'être humain (CER). In some cases, non-invasive human research projects do not require an authorisation from the CER but need an ethical clearance in order to receive third-party funding (for example, upcoming Horizon 2020 projects); such projects can be reviewed by the EPFL Human Research Ethics Committee.
The Committee members are:
- Mrs. Gaia Barazzetti,
- Mrs. Sylvie Randin,
- Professor Yann Barrandon,
- Professor Lazare Benaroyo,
- Professor Thomas David,
- Professor Benoît Deveaud (Chair of the HREC),
- Professor Jean-Pierre Hubaux (member on February 1st, 2014),
- Professor Viktor Kuncak (member until January 31st, 2014).
The Research Office acts as a liaison between the researchers and the Committee and is responsible for verifying that the applications fall within the Committee’s competence and that they are complete. Researchers who need an ethical clearance should visit the new website [link updated on 03.02.2022] , where the official application form, the procedure timeline, the bylaws and links to useful resources are available.