Ethics Committee

The Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine scrutinizes research projects from an ethical point of view at the request of project leaders and issues opinions on them. The evaluation is only intended for research projects that do not fall within the scope of the Human Research Act and therefore do not have to be submitted to the Cantonal Ethics Committee (CEC) or do not require an animal experiment permit.

The Ethics Committee is a permanent committee of the Faculty of Medicine. It evaluates projects of researchers with primary affiliation in the Medical or Vetsuisse Faculty of the University of Zurich as well as researchers of the University Hospitals and Clinics of the University of Zurich.

DOWNLOAD: Rules of Procedure of the Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zurich (only in German) (PDF, 41 KB)

In order to assess whether the evaluation of a research project by the committee is recommended, the “Data Protection and Ethics Self-Assessment Tool” (DESAT) of the University of Zurich should be consulted in advance. DESAT is accessible to all UZH researchers via the portal “Contract Management for Third Party Funding” (AVA) as a stand-alone module.

AVA can be accessed by all UZH employees as follows:

1. Log in to AVA at https://ava.uzh.ch/en/.
2. Create a “New Project” (click the button in the upper right corner).
3. Enter the title of the research project and click on “Create project”.
4. Click on “DESAT” on the overview (left column at the very bottom).
5. Follow the instructions of the questionnaire – for the ethics application it is sufficient to fill in the (shorter) ethics part; however, we recommend that you also check the privacy aspects of your project using DESAT.

If you are an employee of one of the university hospitals and clinics of the University of Zurich and do not have a UZH login, you can alternatively use and submit the ethics questionnaire available as a Word document. DOWNLOAD QUESTIONNAIRE (DOCX, 16 KB)

A submission to the Commission should be made via e-mail to «ethikkommission-mef@dekmed.uzh.ch»  and should include the following information (as attachment):

• The request for review document DOWNLOAD (DOCX, 59 KB)
• Result of the DESAT assessment (or alternatively the Word questionnaire)
• Short summary of the project (half a page to one page maximum)
• Description of the content of the research project, clearly stating the objectives and methods of the project (e.g. study protocol, project description from research proposal, etc.)
• When persons are involved: The consent form used including a description of the project for the attention of the persons approached for the project (e.g. for interviews, surveys, experiments, etc.)
• The questionnaire or interview questions used (if any are used)

If necessary, further documents can be requested in the assessment process. The submission can be made in German or in English.

As a rule, researchers receive an evaluation within 2 weeks, provided that the application can be handled in the simplified procedure. In the case of a detailed procedure, a response will be given within a maximum of two months. In the period from mid-July to mid-August, there may be delays due to the vacations.

The Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Medicine consists of the following persons; the president and the vice-president form the core team, which is also responsible for the simplified procedure:

• President: Prof. Dr. Birgit Kleim, Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
• Vice President: PD Dr. Markus Christen, Digital Society Initiative & Institute for Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine
• Prof. Dr. Anja Kipar, Institute of Veterinary Pathology, Vetsuisse Faculty
• Prof. Dr. Rahel Naef, Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care & Center for Clinical Nursing Sciences (USZ)
• PD Dr. Roberto Andorno, Institute for Biomedical Ethics and History of Medicine
• Prof. Dr. Torsten Hothorn, Institute for Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention
• Prof. Dr. Viktor von Wyl, Institute for Implementation Science in Health Care

Ethics Committee Application Form (DOCX, 59 KB)

DESAT Questions MeF Commission (DOCX, 16 KB)