Ethics Review

During the Grant Agreement Preparation process, an independent ethics review will take place alongside the scientific evaluation. Some proposals will also go through a security scrutiny procedure.

Each Horizon Europe proposal considered for funding will be subject to ethics screening and assessment. The aim is to assess whether there are any potential ethics issues which may arise from a project, for example:

• human rights and protection of human beings
• animal protection and welfare
• data protection and privacy
• environmental protection
• compliance with international, EU and national law

This assessment may confirm that there are no ethics issues, or that your project addresses them appropriately. In this case, the EC will grant your project ethics clearance.

Alternatively, the ethics review may request additional information, or grant your project conditional ethics clearance.

In the case of conditional ethics clearance, you will be provided with an ethics report which will list the ethics requirements. As part of these requirements, the EC could ask you to supply further information, provide regular reporting or carry out an ethics check. You will need to provide a written response to the points raised before signing the Grant Agreement.

The EU team will assist you with the ethics review process, as part of the grant preparation.