Appendix
Appendix to "Procedures for ethical review and approval of research"
Summary of existing ethical review mechanisms
Biomedical research using human subjects or tissue
Any research involving the following must obtain a favourable opinion from the South East Scotland Research Ethics Service before it commences:
- Patients or users of the NHS
- Relatives or carers of NHS patients/users
- Access to the personal data or bodily material of NHS patients
- Foetal material and IVF involving NHS patients
- The recently dead in NHS premises
- NHS staff recruited as research participants by virtue of their professional role
- The use of, or potential access to, NHS premises/facilities Specific areas that may require further approvals include research involving human embryos (the UK Human Fertilisation & Embryology Authority) and gene therapy (the UK Gene Therapy Advisory Committee).
Research using animals
The Home Office requires the University, as a designated establishment under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, to have a formal ethical review process for any scientific research carried out under the Act. An Ethical Review Committee established within the College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine reviews and approves applications to the Home Office for a licence under the Act.
University students as subjects
The University's Student Survey Panel assesses requests for access to the University's student body for the purpose of research projects and surveys. (Where such work is conducted within a single School, the Head of School's approval only is required, and this should be obtained through the School's normal ethics procedures.)
Links to Other Research Ethics Webpages
Within the University:
- Research Policy Group (which provides oversight of ethical issues for the University)
- College of Humanities and Social Science
- College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Research Councils etc:
(The Declaration is an international consensus statement of ethics in research. Researchers involving human subjects are required to operate under these principles which must have been adhered to in the design of the project)
- South East Scotland Research Ethics Service
- Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority
- National Research Ethics Service
- Agriculture and Environment biotechnology Commission (AEBC)
- Research Councils UK (RCUK)
- EPSRC
- BBSRC
- NERC
- MRC
Society codes of conduct and ethics concerns
(Note ‘Instructions to Authors’ quite often contain ethical guidelines, particularly with regard to plagiarism)
- Institute of Biology
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- Institute of Mathematics and its Applications
- Royal Society of Chemistry
- British Computer Society
- Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Journals:
This article was published on Sep 18, 2012