Ethical Aspects

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid is committed to complying with, and enforcing compliance with, all applicable regulations, especially in specific areas such as intellectual property and confidentiality. It is confident in the work of its Research Ethics Committee and ensures compliance with the best practices and ethical principles established in international and national codes of ethics, as well as those of the University itself.

Good practices in research are a priority for the university and all the actions that have been defined in the Ethical Aspects block contribute significantly to our university's open approach or perspective towards transparency and academic and research excellence.

ACTION PLANS. The different Action Plans show the evolution to adapt UC3M's practices to the fundamental ethical principles.

Plan of Action 2022-2024_actions Pillar I

For the coming years, 9 of the 27 proposed actions are related to ethical aspects. We focus on actions regarding inclusion and diversity management, anti-corruption and protection of whistleblowers, and international cooperation actions for sustainable development and social entrepreneurship. And we continue to advance in all our Open Science practices.

E1_Support mechanisms to facilitate the access and professional development of PDI (teaching and research staff) with disabilities at UC3M.

UC3M is committed at all levels to SDG10 (Reducing Inequality), particularly trying to ensure equal opportunities and reduce inequality in relation to access to education and scientific results. The objective of this action is to create a program of supportive measures to enable the effective and active incorporation of people with disabilities in the teaching and research staff environment.

E2_Promoting inclusivity, diversity management and fight against racism and xenophobia.

Develop initiatives that allow us to know how diversity is being managed and create training and awareness-raising activities for the university community.

E3_Establish an action procedure to integrate professors and researchers from at-risk countries into the university community. Emphasis on women researchers.

UC3M has successfully developed several initiatives to host teaching and research staff from countries at risk, especially during the war in Ukraine. It has also provided grants for women researchers from these countries.
All this has involved the mobilization of institutional, financial and human resources to develop programs that reflect the university community's commitment to refugees. The knowledge gained in the past months can culminate in the creation of an action protocol that allows a quick response to academics at risk and institutionalize the resources available for these programs, paying special attention to refugee women researchers.

E4_Creation of an Internal Information System after the approval of the Law on the Protection of People Reporting Offenses and the Fight against Corruption, which transposes the Whistleblower Directive.

December 31, 2023 is the deadline for the adaptation of the Administrations to the Law regulating the protection of persons who report infringements.
In September 23, 2022, the Draft Law regulating the protection of persons who report regulatory infringements and the fight against corruption, which transposes the Whistleblower Directive, has been introduced.
Once the Law has been passed (expected in the first half of 2023), the Internal Reporting System will have to be implemented within three months.

E5_ACEEU: Entrepreneurial and Committed Universities Accreditation:

• Design of social entrepreneurship actions/sessions.

• Citizen science and public engagement.

• Science4Goverment.

Include social entrepreneurship sessions in the activities of the company's own program to promote entrepreneurship, similar to those already provided in the star-ups acceleration program.
Promote sustainable relationships with entities willing to promote programs and activities for the promotion of social entrepreneurship and with socioeconomic impact.

UC3M will be part of Ibercivis, the Spanish non-profit organization that carries out and promotes research in many different areas at local, national and international levels. Ibercivis provides technical support, dissemination and training so that anyone can participate in scientific research, according to their interests and dynamic capabilities. This collaboration will start at the end of 2022.

Active participation of UC3M in the activities organized around Open Science, Science4Government, etc. during the Spanish Presidency of the European Council (Second semester 2023).

E6_Participation in the Coalition for the Advancement of Research Evaluation (COARA).

UC3M will closely follow all developments of the newly created (September 2022) COARA: Coalition for the Advancement of Research Assessment and will participate in pilot experiences for the reform of Investigator evaluation at different levels, including ( if National policy allows) tenured researchers.

E7_Open Science-related actions: eArchivo4OS y Open Access.

eArchivo4OS: Improve the technical capabilities of the institutional repository (e-Archivo) to facilitate all levels of researchers to deposit their work in Green Open Access to comply with the requirements of the EC and the new Spanish Science Law (Law 17/2022, art. 37). UC3M is carrying out a project (eArchivo4OS) partially funded by the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology, to adapt and improve its Green Open Access Repository.

Open Access: UC3M will continue to participate in transformational agreements to fund Open Access, through a series of APCs ((article processing charges) agreed through national contracts with major publishers, while UC3M explores other publishing alternatives such as diamond Open Access.

E8_FOS (Full Open Science) Intiative for research groups.

UC3M leads WP5 of the YUFERING project (Open Science: Establishing the new normal) and Task 5.3 on the recognition of the practice of Open Science by research groups, granting them the label "YUFE-FOS". For this action, UC3M has launched in 2022 a call for research teams to become FOS and has defined, together with other YUFE partners, the criteria to become a "Full Open Science" research group

E9_Mobility program for international cooperation actions for sustainable development.

Through this program, grants will be provided for the mobility of teachers and researchers for research, teach, innovate, and transfer knowledge and technology, or the creation of networks and projects that respond to the global challenges of the 2030 Agenda. The program will be completed with the consideration of measures for the recognition of these activities.

• Action Plan Document 2020-2022_actions Pillar I - Ethical Aspects.

• KPIs and evidences & strengths and weaknesses & key aspects reported in the internal review to Euraxess. July 2022.

E1_Basic data protection guide

As a result of the development and publication of the Code of Good Practices for Research and Transfer of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, approved by the Governing Council in session on December 14, 2017, everything related to data protection has been improved. Thus the E1 - Data Protection Basic Guide establishes the protocols for action on data protection by researchers.

This action is helping to increase the degree of compliance with data protection regulations. The figure of the Data Protection Delegate with the rank of Director has been crucial in this proces

E2_Adaptation of the new Data Protection regulation in all University processes, compliance with the GDPR in the processing of researchers' personal data.

The instructions contained in the European regulation Regulation 2016/679, concerning the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing and free movement of personal data have been promoted in all processes, including the research area. There has been an increase in the number of consultations and files processed at the request of the university community, indicating the normalization of the culture of personal data pro

E3_e-Government Regulation

"With the approval by Law of the Regulation of Performance and Operation of the Public Sector by Electronic Means (2021), it became necessary a regulation, a specific framework at UC3M for the development of its administrative activity through electronic means. Thus, in June 2021, the Electronic Administration Regulation was developed and approved, which facilitates intercommunication with other public administrations, with citizens and with members of the university community in an agile, transparent and simple way.

Currently, all administrative procedures carried out at the University are processed, at least in their initial and resolution stages, through the University's electronic office.

The University is included in the SIR (Registry Interconnection System) to make its communications and receive and submit documents to other Public Administrations completely electronically.

All electronic notifications to members of the university community are made through the electronic office, and all of them have a citizen folder where all the procedures and their complementary documentation are registered".

E4_Creation of a suggestion channel for UC3M staff (Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law)

Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law (the "Whistleblower Directive") was to be implemented by 17 December 2021 for the sake of the guarantee and legal certainty of individuals.

As a consequence of the creation of the channel, a link to the mailbox for incidents, suggestions, complaints or doubts CONTACT WEB is created in the Transparency Portal of the University, in order to centralize all queries.
The need to analyze and prepare a draft of the University's own regulations on the Law regulating the protection of persons who report infringements is raised, and work will be done on this during 2022 and 2023.

E5_Actions to increase the visibility and recognition of women in research, in companies, startups and entrepreneurs in the UC3M environment.

Good practices in Research involve developing actions to increase the visibility and recognition of women in research, in companies, start-ups and as entrepreneurs in the UC3M environment. Equality is one of the fundamental challenges of the UC3M Strategy.

E6_Diagnosis and dissemination of knowledge and attitude about Open Science among our researchers (Open Science Survey).

In the framework of the YUFERING project, where UC3M coordinates WP5 on Open Science, an Open Science analysis will be conducted among the YUFE alliance institutions, including an online survey of YUFE researchers (including all R1-R4 categories) to make a diagnosis of their understanding, practice, knowledge, skills and motivation to implement open science taking into account the specificities of the research discipline of the individual researchers. The objective of this survey is to identify the current level of implementation and barriers to implementing open science at the individual researcher level.

During the years 2021 and 2022, UC3M researchers, at all levels (R1-R4) have reached a higher awareness and sensitivity towards Open Science that can be seen in the number of researchers involved in training activities, specific listserv, or the increase of articles deposited in the OS repository as well as the number of research datasets deposited in the data repository. E6 - Open Science Attitude.
Open Science (OS) becomes commonplace in proposals submitted to Horizon2020 and Horizon Europe, as well as in other national proposals. Firstly due to the mandates of the funders, but also due to the new perception that our researchers have been acquiring over time of HRS4R.

A calendar with information on Open Science event reminders was designed and distributed to the entire university community.

E7_Proyect UniversiDATA Transparency with open data

Transparency with open data: strategic objective of our university. The UniversiDATA project E7 - UniversiDATA Project provides UC3M with greater transparency and commitment to the principle of openness in Universities and Public Institutions in Europe, legitimizing its commitment to the Open and Transparent University within the scope of a great commitment to the Human Resources Strategy of its teaching and research staff, as well as its Strategic Plan.
The UniversiDATA Portal has a great impact on the world of open data. The data published in Open by UC3M in this portal are visible in datos.gob.es and through the EU open data portal. European Data Portal.
In the very near future (Q4-2022) UC3M's open data in the UniversiDATA portal will be used for a specific datathon for students and citizens in Europe, giving more credibility and reuse to the public information we generate. UC3M will continue to open through this way (Linked Open Data)  more relevant datasets related to research practices in the University and contributing to open and visible research practices.

E8_New UC3M Transparency Portal

The new model of the UC3M Transparency Portal was created with the purpose of offering greater transparency in UC3M data in addition to ensuring compliance with Law 10/2019, of April 10, 2019, on Transparency and Participation of the Community of Madrid. In addition to the data offered, the new portal includes a procedure for exercising the right of access to public information.

This new Portal facilitates the right of access to public information and provides open data. According to the Dinamyc Transparency Index (Dyntra.org), in relation to published data on faculty and researchers, the university reached 66.67% in 2021.

Since the publication of the Transparency Portal, the University has consolidated its position among the most transparent Public Universities.

Action Plan Document 2017-2019_actions Pillar I - Ethical Aspects.

E1_Code of Good Practice in Research

The UC3M Código de Buenas Prácticas de Investigación y Transferencia is the document that establishes the guidelines, recommendations and commitments for carrying out research activities at the University.

It is the instrument of self-regulation that, as a complement to the existing legal norms, promotes and guarantees the good practice of research activity.

The UC3M Code of Good Practice in Research, was published on December 18, 2017, and is aligned with the current European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, published by the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities (ALLEA), as a framework for the self-regulation of European research across all scientific and academic disciplines and for all research environments.

E2_UC3M Ethics Committee

The Regulation of Organization and Operation of the Research Ethics Committee of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid was approved by the University on April 27, 2017.
Organization and Functioning Rules of the UC3M Research Ethics Committee.
Its purposes are to establish the scope of the actions of the Ethics Committee, as well as to regulate its operation, composition and decision-making mechanisms.

In addition to the Regulations, UC3M has established a Protocol that aims to describe the Processing of Applications addressed to the UC3M Research Ethics Committee, which is required by the funding entities of some projects in this regard. In this protocol, procedures and documents that will be necessary for the submission of applications to the Research Ethics Committee will be described.

E3_Welcome to Researchers

On the one hand, different UC3M services are working together to draft and implement a welcoming protocol that will define the procedure for the incorporation of guest researchers to our University, including practical matters related to the arrival of researchers, as well as intellectual property issues, job security and institutional and management information.

On the other hand, a welcome document is also being developed for personnel linked to UC3M, both national and international, which will develop the main issues that a professor/researcher must know in the university in order to be able to effectively develop his/her teaching and research work.

The hosting procedures carried out at our University are collected and explained extensively in the Guide for the Management of the Mobility of Foreign Research Staff in Spain, published by FECYT in 2017. This guide is a compilation of the main issues that foreign research personnel must address when they decide to develop part of their career in Spain. It is useful for the resolution of doubts, both for the research personnel themselves, as well as for the host centers. The document covers topics such as: main characteristics of research and research career in Spain, entry and residence conditions, recognition of foreign academic degrees, labor market, tax and social security system, national health system, education and EURAXESS Spain network, which provides support to researchers during mobility periods.

• Hosting Protocol for International Visiting Researchers
• Guidelines for the Management of the Mobility of the Foreign Researcher in Spain 2017​

E4_Institutional Open Access Policy

UC3M is involved in an institutional open access policy to ensure the archiving in the institutional repository (eArchivo) of the university's scientific production and thus comply with the mandate of funding agencies (Horizon 2020 and in Spain, Article 37 of the Law on Science, Technology and Innovation).

http://www.uc3m.es/ss/Satellite/Biblioteca/es/TextoMixta/1371214251312/

Training Activity: Researcher Visibility Strategy (Open Science)

A UC3M working group on Open Science, UniOS, has been established as a support unit for researchers in all Open Science practices, but also as a working group, generator of ideas and initiatives to promote open science at the University, especially in the European, national and YERUN context. UniOS is a transversal group where different services and researchers of the University are involved.

• Establishment working group UniOS

E5_Equal Opportunity Plan

The objective of our University is to achieve a gender balance at all levels of its workforce. This is based on an equal opportunity policy from recruitment and at all subsequent career stages, without detracting from the importance of quality and competence criteria. Both selection and evaluation committees are constituted with an appropriate gender balance.

The II Equality Plan of UC3M  focuses on the following lines of action:
Axis 1.- Awareness, communication and training on equality issues.
Axis 2.- Access, promotion and professional career.
Axis 3.- Conciliation and co-responsibility.
Axis 4.- Teaching and Research
UC3M Equality Unit