The review process
An overview of the ethics review process, who is involved, and what the possible outcomes might be.
Applications will go to the Supervisor (or Course Organiser for in-class projects other than dissertations) for ethical review and sign-off/escalation. For complex research projects,* the Supervisor will escalate the application to the LLC Ethics Officer for sign-off/escalation. If the LLC Ethics Officer determines that an application needs further scrutiny then it will be escalated to College for additional review.
*Here, ‘complex research projects’ refers to projects which involve trigger questions in the Research Ethics, Integrity & Governance Application.
Applications will go to the Supervisor for ethical review and sign-off/escalation. The Supervisor will escalate the application to the LLC Ethics Officer for review. All research projects, will then be reviewed by one or two independent reviewers from the School Research Ethics Committee (REC), depending on the complexity* of the project. If the REC determines that an application needs further scrutiny, then it will be escalated to College for additional review.
*Here, ‘complex research projects’ refers to projects which involve trigger questions in the Research Ethics, Integrity & Governance Application.
All applications will go to the School REC for review where they will be reviewed by one or two independent reviewers from the School Research Ethics Committee (REC), depending on the complexity* of the project. If the REC determines that an application needs further scrutiny, then it will be escalated to College for additional review.
*Here, ‘complex research projects’ refers to projects which involve trigger questions in the Research Ethics, Integrity & Governance Application.
There are four possible outcomes to an application:
- Favourable ethical opinion: The Research Ethics Committee confirms that it has a favourable opinion of your ethics application and on the basis of this opinion you can proceed with your research.
- Conditional favourable ethical opinion: The Research Ethics Committee confirms that it has a favourable opinion of your ethics application but stipulates specific issues which must be addressed before you can proceed with your research. If you do not address the issues raised by the REC, you will invalidate the favourable opinion in whole or in part.
- Unable to provide a favourable ethical opinion: The Research Ethics Committee confirms that it either has insufficient information to form an ethical opinion or there are outstanding ethical issues which need to be addressed before a favourable opinion can be formed.
- Unfavourable ethical opinion: The Research Ethics Committee confirms that it can not provide a favourable ethical opinion for the research due to ethical issues not being addressed in the application or due to the lateness of the application.