Ethical committee as a form of institutionalisation of academic ethics

Abstract

Ethical committee is an effective instrument for resolving moral problems of contemporary university and a form of institutionalisation of its social responsibility. Different models of ethical committees are discussed in the article. Namely, the corporate model, where a university is regarded as a big business entity; the legal model, which settles different intra-organisational conflicts; the expert model, which evaluates the conformity of research projects with universal moral norms; the enlightening model, where the university is regarded as an instrument of insemination of moral values. The choice of the model defines procedural questions, the number of committee members, its representativeness, functions and periodicity of meetings.