In order to fulfill its social responsibility, NCKU has established ¨The Governance Framework for Human Research Ethics〃 (¨the framework〃) to protect the rights and welfare of human research participants. The framework also ensures that the related personnel of NCKU and the contracted ethical review schools commits to responsible and ethical research activities when they are conducting human researches. Human research refers to individuals or groups of people as research subjects or participants. A research activity can be a systematic investigation or knowledge discovery activity of any academic discipline, that entails research methods such as observation, intervention, interaction, or non-consensual use of participantsˇ data whether identity cues are delinked or not.
1. Southern Taiwan Universities Consortium
In order to assist and facilitate research ethics-related affairs in the southern and eastern regions of Taiwan, as well as in surrounding islands, the school has collaborated with more than 50 institutions and established the "Southern Taiwan Universities Consortium"( Southern Consortium ) in 2012 to provide its members with services under the framework such as ethical review, training and consultation.
2. Missions
The framework is committed to the following purposes:
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Protect the rights and welfare of research participants involved in the research projects of the school and of the contracted ethical review schools.
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Ensure that the research projects of the school and of the contracted ethical review schools are conducted in accordance with Taiwan laws and regulations on human research.
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Urge research project organizers of the school and of the contracted ethical review schools.
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Establish a comprehensive research plan and implement ethical research procedures.
3. Functions
The framework has four functions:
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Ethical Review To review and inspect research projects that are conducted by school and of the contracted ethical review schools; to check whether these projects protect the rights and welfare of participants as well as provide concrete procedures that offer better and safer protection to research participants.
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Education and Training To provide research participants with protection concept training; to facilitate responsible and ethical research practices by guiding research project leaders, research staffs, research assistants, students of the school and of the contracted ethical review schools.
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Ethical Consultation To provide ethical consultation or search for available ethical expert/channel that can offer support in terms of protection for research participants, application of ethical review or other related research practices.
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Research Development To organize, analyze and review human research projects that are submitted for ethical review in order to gather related ethical arguments and develop appropriate ethical regulations that address academic conditions in Taiwan.
To fulfill academic and social responsibilities when discovering new knowledge while promoting public welfare.