Consent is required by law
According to the Ethical Review Act, every research participant must give their consent to participate in research involving human subjects. This applies regardless of whether the research requires ethical review or not. The Act contains special rules for research participants under the age of 18.
Read more about ethical review
What you must notify participants about
The research may only be conducted if the research participant has consented after receiving clear information about:
- the overall plan for the research;
- the purpose of the research;
- the methods that will be used;
- possible consequences and risks;
- who the entity responsible for the research is;
- participation being voluntary; and
- data subjects having the right to end their participation at any time.
Support in informing research participants
The Ethical Review Authority has a template that you can use to inform the research participants in your project.
Please note that the template does not contain all the information on how personal data are processed. Therefore, you always need to supplement it with Umeå University’s own template when you process personal data in your research.
The Ethical Review Authority’s template for research participants (etikprovningsmyndigheten.se, in Swedish only)
Do you have a question for the legal officers?
If you have a legal question about agreements, secrecy, personal data and other legal aspects of research, please contact the legal officers at universitetsjurist@umu.se.
