Ethics
Ethical application process
Ethical approval is required if you are conducting research which requires you to interact with humans and/or human tissue. This applies to Undergraduate Honours, Masters and PhD students as well as members of staff.
Types of research that require ethical approval include:
- surveys
- questionnaires
- interviews
- psychology studies
- case studies
- invasive testing.
Research involving social media also requires ethical approval. Both researchers and participants must be fully aware that social media and social networking can have blurred boundaries regarding privacy. Researchers are responsible for ensuring that participants know that, although every effort will be made to restrict visibility, there is a potential for research done this way to become accessible to a much wider audience: once uploaded, it remains a permanent traceable online record, even if you choose to delete it later. See more information on UTREC web page Social media research.
You must obtain ethical approval in the form of an approval letter and associated code before proceeding with your research. If you are a student you will be required to bind a copy of your formal approval into your dissertation or thesis prior to submission. In addition, many journals now require evidence that ethical approval was granted in association with the work prior to accepting papers for publication.
The University Teaching and Research Ethics Committee (UTREC) is the overarching committee which delegates responsibility for the ethical review of all teaching and research activities involving human participants to each School.
The UTREC pages are an excellent source of information in relation to conducting your research. Please refer to the Integrity and ethics section for help.
The ethical application form and all associated forms can be found on the UTREC pages at Ethical review application.