Ethics and Research Integrity Officer Network (ERION)
ERION is the Ethics and Research Integrity Officer Network within EARMA. It is an open community to discuss the practical and implementation side of Research Ethics and Integrity. The community is for all those that need to ensure compliance, efficiency, functionality, fairness and robustness in the practices and processes in their organisation. Read more about ERION here.
Participants may have titles such as Ethics/Integrity Officer, Administrator and many others. In this respect, there is a clear distinction between ERION and other ethics groups and committees targeted at policy, high level, philosophical or strategic advice. The main focus of the community is putting theory and policy into practice.
A key component of ERION is the H2020 Standard Operating Procedures for Research Integrity (SOPs4RI) project (2019-2022) where EARMA has partnered together with other 12 organisations across Europe. SOPs4RI is working to promote excellent research and a strong research integrity culture that aligns with the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity. More information about the project here.
Purpose
ERION is a community of practitioners, rules and procedure experts, and its main purpose is to provide a forum for knowledge-sharing and collaboration in order to facilitate implementation of relevant policy and establishment of best practices.
The community will also take advantage of its role as an important stakeholder in the field, for instance by providing input to the EC Ethics and Research Integrity Sector of DG RTD (ERIS) regarding rules, procedures and practice, and participating in research projects and other initiatives of relevance to the community’s interests.
Meetings
ERION usually meets at least twice per year online or physically (in Brussels or in other locations across Europe). Topics discussed in past meetings included: GDPR implementation, research evaluation, training and many others. You can watch back some of the meetings on the EARMA Youtube channel: https://bit.ly/2WJlk49
ERION in conversation: An overview of 2021
Testimonials
Susan Hommerson, Policy Officer medical/medical device, Eindhoven University of Technology
The implementation of Ethics and Integrity in research is very dynamic. ERION facilitates as a discussion platform between experts all over Europe. Networking and learning from my European colleagues has helped me to come up with new ideas and improvements for my organization.
I am policy officer at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Technology research has an increasing direct societal impact. This brings along a big responsibility, by collaboration and discussion, we can tackle these societal challenges together. Within ERION, I moderate sessions and help to co-create network activities.
I see myself as an intermediary. By obtaining information on Ethics and Integrity from ERION, I can bring our researchers and project officers up-to-speed on the latest developments. In addition, feedback from my organization can be discussed and tackled within ERION.
Maruxa Martinez-Campos, Digital media and Scientific affairs at PRBB and Associate Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra - UPF
I joined ERION in 2018 –even before the name of the group had been coined – because of my involvement in research integrity in my organization. Not being exactly a research manager myself, I had doubts whether my profile was going to fit in this group, but the experience has been fantastic. It has allowed me to network with a wide variety of people (different profiles and countries) involved in research integrity and access a tone of information on the topic. It has given me a broad view of what’s happening in other places in Europe, and the possibility of sharing challenges and solutions at a very informal and practical level.
I have joined nearly all ERION meetings (of the many meetings we have nowadays, I never want to miss these ones!) either as a participant, rapporteur or presenter. What I have heard and learned there has had a big impact in my work: it has helped me develop my career in this topic, fostered new, interesting discussions at my institution, and led to my involvement in several interesting projects at a European level, such as EnTIRE, VIRT2UE or SOPS4RI.
Being part of ERION has been like opening a door to a whole new world of knowledge, experiences, interactions, and new opportunities!
Further testimonials
Here are some testimonials received during the the EARMA ERION dissemination event December 7, 2021. View this session on our YouTube channel here.
ERION Core Group Members
Cath Cotton, TU Delft Cecilia Martinsson Björkdahl, Karolinska Institutet Dorota Lepianka, University of Amsterdam Emina Zoletic, University of Warsaw Jakob Feldtfos Christensen, DIVERSIunity/DEFACTUM Joanne Doleman, Wellcome Sanger Institute Maruxa Martinez, Barcelona Biomedical Research Park (PRBB) Mariam Merabishvili, Agricultural University of Georgia Sarah Claes, University of Antwerp Susan Hommerson, Eindhoven University of Technology, ERION Chair Joana Porcel, ISGLOBAL, ERION Co-Chair Jonas Åkerman, Stockholm University
Get involved
If you want to be involved in the ERION community, please register here. If you are not an EARMA member, you can register as a Guest member.
