Rannsóknarviðmiða

Rannsóknarviðmiða are guidelines that set out the standards for planning, conducting, reporting, and supervising research. They are issued by universities, research institutions, funding bodies, professional societies, and journals to promote quality, integrity, and accountability across disciplines.

The guidelines typically cover several core areas. Ethical principles include respect for participants, informed consent, minimization of risk, and protection of privacy and confidentiality. Methodological quality is emphasized through rigorous study design, appropriate methods, and efforts to reduce bias. Transparency in reporting, reliability and reproducibility, and clear documentation of methods are encouraged. Data management and privacy are addressed, including how data is collected, stored, and shared. Authorship criteria, collaboration norms, and handling conflicts of interest are also specified. Safety considerations are particularly important for research involving humans, animals, or regulated procedures.

Implementation and oversight usually involve some form of review or governance. Research proposals may require ethics approval from an institutional review board or ethics committee, and ongoing monitoring during studies. Compliance with data protection laws and ethical norms is expected, and many guidelines promote preregistration, open reporting, and responsible data sharing where appropriate.

Rannsóknarviðmiða are often aligned with international frameworks, such as the Declaration of Helsinki for medical research, CIOMS guidelines, ICH-GCP, and ICMJE publication standards. In practice, they are adopted at the national, institutional, and disciplinary levels, and in contexts such as the European Economic Area, GDPR privacy rules also play a central role.

Overall, these guidelines aim to protect participants, improve research quality and trust, ensure accountability, and support responsible and transparent scientific inquiry. They continue to evolve as new technologies and research practices emerge.