To ensure the highest ethical and data protection standards across all participating countries, the project is supported by a comprehensive Ethics & Data Package developed at Ghent University.

This package consists of three complementary documents:

• the Specific Ethics Protocol (SEP)
• the Information Letter & Consent Form
• the Data Management Plan (DMP)

These documents describe the study’s ethical design, participant communication, and data protection procedures.

How to use these documents

Collaborators are responsible for obtaining ethical approval in accordance with their local institutional and national requirements.

The provided documents are intended to support this process:

• SEP (Ethics Protocol)
  → Use as a reference and template to structure your local ethics application
  → Do not submit as-is, but adapt to your institution
• Information Letter & Consent Form
  → Can be used as a ready-to-use template (only in English but will be provided in your local language in the survey), with minor adaptations
  → Please update (if required):
  • local collaborator details
  • ethics approval information
• DMP (Data Management Plan)
  → Use as a supporting document if your ethics committee requests details on data protection
  → Do not submit as your own institutional DMP

Core principles of the project

All study materials are built around a strict privacy-by-design approach, ensuring safe participation across diverse cultural and political contexts.

Centralised and secure data management

• Data are collected via Qualtrics
• All data are stored and managed exclusively by Ghent University
• Ghent University acts as the data controller

Role of collaborators

• Collaborators:
  • disseminate the survey link
  • do not collect, access, or store data
• All responses are transferred directly to UGent servers

Anonymity and data protection

• No direct identifiers are collected (e.g., name, IP address, location data)
• Participation is fully anonymous
• Optional email addresses for follow-up:
  • are voluntary
  • stored separately
  • accessible only to the UGent research team

Data sharing

• Only fully anonymised and simplified datasets are shared with collaborators
• No:
  • contact data
  • linkage information
  • longitudinal identifiers
    are ever shared

GDPR compliance

All procedures comply with:

• the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• institutional policies of Ghent University

Data are:

• securely stored
• access-restricted
• anonymised prior to analysis and sharing

Support and Download 

If your ethics committee has questions or requires additional documentation (e.g., data management details, consent forms, or formal agreements), please contact:

Dr. Joachim Waterschoot, Ghent University
📧 joachim.waterschoot@ugent.be