Dealing with Consent in Scientific Research

Participant consent has always been a key principle in scientific research. It is used to ensure participants fully understand the research process and partake voluntarily, in line with the Declaration of Helsinki. In addition, it is often used to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, Dutch: AVG) when processing identifyable personal data.

However, using consent as a legal basis for the processing of personal data presents some difficulties:

• Participants can withdraw consent at any time. This may disrupt ongoing research projects as it requires deletion of the data.
• Consent is often highly specific and explicit. This restricts the possibility of reusing data for future studies.

The GDPR recognizes research in the public interest as another valid legal basis for processing personal data. Therefore, the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences uses “public interest” as the primary legal basis for processing personal data in research.

Researchers still need to obtain informed consent from participants. However, the focus shifts to ensure voluntary and informed participation. This also means that informed consent forms do not have to contain the participants name and signature. In addition, it makes it easier to use passive consent in non-invasive studies, where people are provided with information about the study and given the opportunity to object.

When Explicit Consent is still Required
Special categories of personal data —such as ethnicity, sexual orientation, or health information— are given special attention in the GDPR. Processing these variables as personal data still requires explicit consent. When collecting these variables anonymously, for instance using a separate questionnaire for sample statistics, the GDPR does not apply. Our privacy website has several templates available for the different types of data being collected.

The table shows the type of consent generally applicable when doing research with different types of data, while employed by the University.

For more details on legal bases and possible exceptions, our website offers comprehensive guidelines and practical examples.