Research for the undergraduate, masters and Psych D courses.

You will need to apply to the University Ethics Committee for an opinion if this is appropriate

The responsibility lies with you to opt in to a formal ethical process if you consider this necessary. This could be an external ethical committee such as the NHS, the University Committee or the Faculty committee.

Basically, if you are supervising a desk study, secondary analysis or a meta analysis you normally are exempt from seeking a formal ethical approval. If the study involves a group such as patients or prisoners you are likely to require the appropriate external committee and a parallel application to University of Surrey ethics committee. If the study involves primary data collection and where deception is part of the research design, sampling involves vulnerable participants, payment to participants or samples are drawn from staff associated with the investigators, if there are any foreseeable risks to the participants or investigator or there are any questions arising from the anonymity or confidentiality of participants the default is to seek an ethical opinions from the Faculty ethics committee.

Complete the FAHS EC this form (available on the documents page) and submit to Julie Earl in the Faculty office (J.Earl@surrey.ac.uk)

As the supervisor, it is your judgement that dictates what constitutes a significant change to the original proposal that warrants a resubmission. If the topic changes entirely, then yes a new form needs to be submitted.

Normally no unless the data you are collecting is dealing with a sensitive topic which may require some follow up if participants experience any discomfort, or if the potential respondents are a vulnerable group such as children.

Dean of Faculty and Heads of Departments are responsible for teaching and research carried out within their Faculty/departments and under the supervision of their staff. It is the responsibility of all supervisors to ensure any student involved as researchers or in conducting experiments are aware of the Faculty’s ethical guidelines and that these guidelines are observed.
The generation of the research topic , soundness of the research design and management of the student during the period that the research is conducted as primarily the responsibility of the supervisor. The supervisor in consultation with the student also makes the decision whether to seek a formal ethical opinion.
There is a checklist on this site to provide an aide memoire for completion of a satisfactory research proposal.

The proposal must be completed on documentation at:
(http://portal.surrey.ac.uk/registry/ethics) and sent to Glenn Moulton (G.Moulton@surrey.ac.uk)

The completed application should be submitted to Julie Earl in 36AD04 (remember to keep a copy for yourself). Your application will be scanned and circulated to members of the Ethics Committee for their response. Unless serious concerns are expressed, the Committee does not meet to discuss the application. Returned comments are collated and included in a letter from the Chair, Dr Adrian Coyle. If conditions for approval are required, the amended application (with guidance from the supervisor) should be resubmitted to Julie Earl. Dr Coyle will normally take ‘Chair’s Action’ on consideration of the amended documentation.

Please supply University contact details only. Any materials that will be given to potential research participants (such as recruitment letters and information sheets) should not include home addresses, personal, non-University email addresses or mobile phone numbers. An exception can be made to the use of personal mobile numbers only when you have bought a sim card for your phone that will be used exclusively for research purposes and will be destroyed when data generation is complete. If you intend to do this, please make this clear in your application.