Today, Monday, January 30, 2023, the members of the newly established Ethics Committee of the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) met for their constituent meeting. Dr. Patrick Rummel was elected chairman. The deputy chairman is Simon Dickopf. The Ethics Committee reviews research projects conducted on behalf of LIfBi. The review process enables researchers to enter into an exchange and to examine, reflect and, if necessary, optimize their own research design against the background of ethically relevant questions. With the establishment of an ethics committee, LIfBi follows the standards of the Leibniz Code of Good Research Practice.

The newly founded ethics committee of LIfBi expresses a self-commitment to adhere to research ethics principles. It reviews all research projects, in particular data-collection studies, conducted on behalf of LIfBi. After the review, the commission has three decision options at its disposal: "unobjectionable" " unobjectionable subject to adjustments," and " no unobjectionable".

Through the multi-perspective consideration of its five members, the commission assesses research projects with regard to their ethical permissibility. In particular, the perspective of the study participants is taken into account. "It was particularly important for us to have as broad a perspective as possible. The staff members appointed to the commission therefore represent a range of scientific qualification levels as well as of the scientific disciplines at LIfBi," says LIfBi Director, Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt.

With the establishment of the commission, LIfBi follows the Leibniz standards and procedures within the framework of the Leibniz Code of Good Research Practice. This commits all Leibniz institutions to use the code "Guidelines of Good Research Practice" presented by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 2019 as a binding basis.

The members of the Ethics Committee appointed by LIfBi are Simon Dickopf (deputy chairman), Dr. Lydia Kleine, Dr. Kathrin Lockl, Dr. Patrick Rummel (chairman) and Dr. Monja Schmitt. Brigitte Bogensperger is an associate member as internal data protection officer at LIfBi. The Ethics Committee will start work on February 15, 2023.