Placeboes Research Foundation (“Placeboes”, “Foundation”, “we”, “our”, or “us”) is committed to conducting research, innovation, education, collaboration, and public engagement with scientific integrity, respect for persons, social responsibility, and appropriate ethical oversight.
This Ethics Policy establishes the principles that guide activities undertaken, supported, commissioned, or formally associated with Placeboes Research Foundation.
It applies, as appropriate, to trustees, researchers, employees, consultants, students, collaborators, volunteers, technology developers, and others acting on behalf of or in formal association with the Foundation.
Activities undertaken by Placeboes should be guided by the following principles:
Scientific value does not, by itself, justify ethically inappropriate means.
Research should be designed, conducted, analysed, interpreted, and communicated with honesty, rigour, transparency, and appropriate scientific scepticism.
Fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, deliberate misrepresentation of evidence, inappropriate manipulation of data, or other serious departures from accepted standards of research integrity are inconsistent with this Policy.
Researchers should distinguish, where relevant, between:
Limitations, uncertainty, contradictory evidence, and material methodological constraints should not knowingly be concealed.
Research involving human participants, identifiable human information, biological materials, or other activities requiring ethical oversight should undergo review by an appropriately constituted and competent ethics committee or institutional review body before commencement, where required.
Research should be conducted in accordance with the approved protocol and applicable ethical, institutional, and regulatory requirements.
Material deviations or amendments should undergo additional review where required.
Approval by an ethics committee does not remove the continuing ethical responsibilities of investigators.
The dignity, rights, safety, privacy, and well-being of research participants should take precedence over scientific or institutional convenience.
Participants should be treated respectfully throughout recruitment, participation, follow-up, and subsequent handling of information or materials derived from their participation.
Research participation should ordinarily be voluntary and based upon appropriate information and consent.
Where informed consent is required, prospective participants should receive information sufficient to make a meaningful and voluntary decision regarding participation.
Depending upon the nature of the study, this may include information concerning:
Consent should be obtained without coercion, undue influence, or inappropriate inducement.
Additional safeguards should be considered where research involves individuals or communities whose circumstances may increase vulnerability to coercion, exploitation, exclusion, harm, or impaired decision-making.
The inclusion of vulnerable populations should be scientifically and ethically justified rather than based merely upon convenience or accessibility.
Protective measures should be proportionate to the nature of the vulnerability and the research.
Research should have a scientifically and ethically defensible relationship between anticipated benefits, scientific value, burdens, and reasonably foreseeable risks.
Risks should be identified and minimized wherever reasonably possible.
Research should not expose participants to avoidable risks merely to simplify study design, reduce cost, accelerate recruitment, or increase convenience.
Safety information emerging during a study should be evaluated and acted upon appropriately.
Personal, clinical, research, and other confidential information should be collected, accessed, processed, stored, shared, and retained only for legitimate purposes and with safeguards appropriate to its sensitivity.
Access should ordinarily be limited to persons who require the information for authorized purposes.
Privacy and confidentiality obligations may continue after completion of a research project or termination of a collaboration.
Data handling should also comply with the Foundation's Privacy Policy and Data Sharing Policy.
Research data should be collected, recorded, maintained, analysed, preserved, and reported in ways that support scientific integrity and appropriate verification.
Researchers should not selectively omit, alter, manufacture, suppress, or misrepresent data in ways that distort scientific conclusions.
Corrections should be made transparently where material errors are identified.
Sharing and secondary use of data should comply with participant consent, ethics approvals, applicable law, contractual obligations, confidentiality requirements, and the Foundation's Data Sharing Policy.
Authorship should reflect genuine intellectual or scientific contribution and corresponding accountability for published work.
Gift, honorary, coercive, purchased, or otherwise inappropriate authorship is inconsistent with responsible scientific practice.
Contributors who do not meet applicable authorship criteria should be acknowledged appropriately where relevant and with any necessary permission.
Authorship disputes should, wherever possible, be resolved fairly and on the basis of actual contributions and applicable publication standards.
Placeboes supports responsible dissemination of scientific findings, including results that are negative, inconclusive, unexpected, or inconsistent with initial hypotheses.
Research communication should avoid deliberate exaggeration, selective presentation, misleading certainty, inappropriate causal claims, or concealment of material limitations.
Public communication of scientific findings should distinguish emerging evidence from established knowledge.
Press releases, website content, educational materials, presentations, and public statements should preserve the essential meaning and limitations of the underlying science.
Individuals participating in peer review, scientific evaluation, grant assessment, recruitment, or other confidential evaluative processes should protect information entrusted to them.
Privileged information obtained through review should not be used for personal, scientific, commercial, or competitive advantage.
Reviewers should disclose material conflicts of interest and decline assignments where impartial evaluation cannot reasonably be maintained.
Actual, potential, or reasonably perceived conflicts of interest should be disclosed and appropriately managed.
Conflicts may be financial, professional, academic, institutional, intellectual, personal, or relational.
The existence of a conflict does not necessarily make an activity unethical. Failure to disclose or appropriately manage a material conflict may, however, compromise trust and scientific integrity.
Where necessary, management measures may include disclosure, independent oversight, recusal, modification of responsibilities, or discontinuation of the conflicted activity.
Sources of funding and material support should be disclosed where appropriate.
Funding relationships should not permit sponsors or other interested parties to improperly influence study design, data interpretation, access to results, authorship, or scientific conclusions.
Contractual restrictions should not be used to conceal scientifically or ethically important findings.
Placeboes expects scientific collaborators and partner organizations to uphold ethical standards appropriate to the activities being undertaken.
Collaborative arrangements should, where relevant, establish responsibilities concerning:
Differences in institutional or national standards should not be exploited to circumvent ethical protections.
Research involving communities should recognize that scientifically valuable research can have consequences extending beyond individual participants.
Where appropriate, researchers should consider community context, cultural factors, accessibility, local priorities, potential stigmatization, and the distribution of benefits and burdens.
Community engagement should not be represented as community consent where individual informed consent remains ethically required.
Selection of research populations, distribution of research burdens and benefits, access to participation, and interpretation of findings should be approached fairly.
Individuals or communities should not be excluded without scientific or ethical justification, nor disproportionately exposed to research burdens because of socioeconomic disadvantage, limited bargaining power, or accessibility to investigators.
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, automated decision systems, and computational technologies used in Placeboes activities should be developed and applied with consideration of their intended purpose, limitations, uncertainty, potential biases, privacy implications, and possible consequences for individuals and society.
Where such systems influence consequential decisions, appropriate human oversight should be maintained.
Researchers should not knowingly present AI-generated information as independently verified scientific evidence without appropriate validation.
Confidential or identifiable research information should not be entered into external AI systems without appropriate authorization and safeguards.
Use of artificial intelligence should also comply with the Foundation's AI Use Policy.
Technological capability does not by itself establish ethical desirability.
Technologies developed or investigated by Placeboes should, where appropriate, be considered in relation to:
Ethical reflection should occur throughout development rather than only after a technology has been completed.
Intellectual property should be developed, attributed, protected, licensed, shared, and used consistently with applicable law, contractual commitments, scientific integrity, and legitimate contributor rights.
Protection of intellectual property should not be used to misrepresent scientific findings or improperly deny recognition to legitimate contributors.
Researchers and collaborators should disclose potentially protectable inventions or discoveries through appropriate institutional processes before public disclosure where required.
Where Placeboes undertakes, sponsors, or collaborates in research involving animals, such research must receive appropriate ethical and regulatory approval where required.
Animal research should be scientifically justified and conducted according to applicable principles concerning replacement, reduction, refinement, humane care, and minimization of unnecessary suffering.
No animal research should commence merely on the basis of scientific interest without the appropriate ethical and institutional oversight.
Where relevant, research and technological activities should consider reasonably foreseeable environmental and broader societal consequences.
Researchers should remain attentive to the possibility that scientific knowledge or technology may be used in ways different from those originally intended.
Foreseeable risks of misuse should be considered proportionately during research design, dissemination, and technology development.
Concerns regarding possible research misconduct, participant safety, unethical conduct, serious breaches of confidentiality, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or other material violations should be raised through appropriate institutional channels.
Reports should be considered fairly, confidentially where reasonably possible, and without predetermined conclusions.
Individuals raising genuine concerns in good faith should not be subjected to retaliation merely for making such a report.
Knowingly false or malicious allegations are themselves inconsistent with responsible conduct.
Where credible concerns arise, Placeboes may undertake or facilitate an appropriate review or investigation consistent with the nature and seriousness of the allegation and applicable institutional or regulatory requirements.
Where a breach is established, proportionate action may include:
Ethical research depends upon more than compliance with formal rules.
Placeboes seeks to encourage an institutional culture in which researchers and collaborators critically consider the scientific, human, and societal consequences of their work and are willing to question practices that may compromise integrity or participant welfare.
Training, discussion, mentorship, and continuing reflection should therefore complement formal ethical oversight.
Individuals engaged in Placeboes activities are responsible for understanding and complying with ethical requirements relevant to their work.
Uncertainty about an ethical issue should be raised before proceeding where reasonably possible.
Lack of awareness of applicable requirements does not automatically remove responsibility for conduct.
This Ethics Policy should be read together with other applicable Placeboes governance documents, including the:
Specific research protocols, ethics approvals, informed-consent documents, collaboration agreements, institutional requirements, professional standards, and applicable laws may impose additional obligations.
Where more specific requirements apply, those requirements govern the relevant activity.
Placeboes Research Foundation may periodically revise this Ethics Policy to reflect developments in research practice, scientific standards, technology, ethical guidance, institutional activities, or applicable legal and regulatory requirements.
Revisions will be published on the Foundation's website together with an updated effective date.
Questions regarding this Ethics Policy or concerns relating to ethical conduct associated with Placeboes activities may be directed to:
Placeboes Research Foundation
Email: info@placeboes.org
Website: www.placeboes.org