Ethics committees in Turkish universities

Ethics committee's are committees which reviews and evaluates ethics related situations and events, and consists of members specialized in the field. Nowadays, ethics committees hold an important place in ensuring scientists conduct accurate studies and help construct a better future, and ensuring universities are of high quality and efficiency in terms of scientific study. In this regard, analyzing ethics committees in universities will be both helpful scientifically and also in in giving a description of the current state of university ethics committees. Consequently, in this study, the number, variety and structure of ethics committees in 108 government and 71 foundation universities across Turkey were examined through their web sites. The result of such examination found that there was no set universal standard in ethics committees and that there were a huge variety of ethics committees. Starting from this point of view, university ethics committees need to be improved through both quantitative and qualitative research and a standard in regards to the scientific field they provide services to ought to be set. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.