Ethics in Horizon 2020

Ethics is an integral part of all Horizon Europe projects and needs to be considered from proposal preparation stage until the end of the project. You need to pay particular attention to the ethics aspects, as you are required to provide detailed information as soon as ethics issues emerge.

Ethics and proposal preparation

When preparing your proposal, you need to perform an ethics self-appraisal by first completing the “Ethics Issues Table” in section 4 of the online administrative form of your proposal (Part A). This step is required even if your proposal does not raise any ethics issue.

If your proposal raises one or more of the issues listed in the ethics issues table, you must also complete the ethics self-sssessment  that will become part of your grant agreement (in Annex 1, as description of the action, ethics requirements, etc.). This must include a description of the issue, the way you intend to deal with them in order to ensure ethics compliance and any relevant documents. The ethics self-assessment will allow for a more effective ethics clearance and an accelerated granting process if the proposal is selected for funding.

Ethics concerns can arise for example in relation to:

• Human beings, embryos, stem cells
• Personal data
• Animals
• Non-EU countries
• Environment, health and safety
• Artificial intelligence

For projects with a significant ethics dimension, consider involving/appointing an ethics advisor/advisory board.

All proposals are subject to an Ethics Screening during the evaluation and, in case of approval, you might be required to provide additional information concerning ethics.

For detailed guidance on how to answer the questionnaire and how to draft your ethics self-assessment, you can follow the guide How to complete your ethics self-assessment.