Research Ethics Considerations and Approval

Ethics approval is needed for all research involving human participants, human tissue or data from which individuals could be identifiable. You can learn more about this here:  Research ethics (including CUREC) | Research Support (ox.ac.uk)

While some research obviously needs research ethics approval, in some cases this is not straightforward. The flow chart on the page below helps you determine whether or not you need ethics approval:  

Where and how to apply for ethical review | Research Support (ox.ac.uk)

Please be mindful that it can take at least 30 days for you to secure Research Ethics approval in cases where your research does not entail complex ethical issues, and at least 60 days for cases where it does (such issues could include, but are not limited to, recruitment of  people whose ability to give free and informed consent is in question, risk to participants of criminal prosecution or use of deception methodology). 

As the Faculty of Law does not have its own Research Ethics Committee, all staff and students in Law must apply to the Social Sciences and Humanities Interdivisional Research Ethics Committee (SSH IDREC).

From October 2024, this is done online through the Worktribe Ethics system. 

Please make sure to review the following documents when preparing your Research Ethics application:

• Read the Worktribe Ethics Applicant Guide.
• Download the Faculty Worktribe guidance, on how the online system will work for the Law Faculty. 
• Read the Social Sciences and Humanities Division advice on how to prepare a Research Ethics application. Further resources for researchers preparing an application are available on the University Research Services webpages. 

In the Worktribe ethics application form, all members of the research team must say which training they have completed. It will not be possible to submit the application for review without completing this section, but you can complete this part after working on other parts of the application form.

For student research projects, the research team is defined as the student plus the supervisor. The supervisor is described as the Principal Investigator. 

All team members must have completed Research Integrity training within the past three years and Information Security & Data Protection training within the last one year.

The training is all available online there are links from the University's Research Support pages.

The Research Integrity core course is available on CoSy 
In the course description the duration is given as 250 minutes.
A certificate is issued once successfully completed.

The Research Integrity refresher course for experienced researchers is also available on CoSy 
https://cosy.ox.ac.uk/accessplan/LMSPortal/UI/Page/Courses/book.aspx?courseid=EPICE070&referrer=coursesearch

All staff must complete the Information Security and Data Protection training every 12 months to ensure the University is compliant with UK Data Protection legislation
https://www.infosec.ox.ac.uk/do-the-online-training

In Worktribe, the student supervisor is the project PI. When complete the student submits the application to the supervisor. The supervisor then submits to the law faculty ethics officer or returns to the student with comments.

Supervisors have overall responsibility for research carried out by their students. This was the case previously, and was unaffected by the transition to the use of Worktribe. In Worktribe, this is why supervisors have the ability to return applications to a student if they have concerns about the design of the research prior to submission to the SSH IDREC for review.

The definition and responsibilities of Principal Investigators have not changed in the move from using Word documents to Worktribe.

In Worktribe, in the Research Team tab:

“The PI is the person who will assume overall responsibility for the conduct and ethics standards of the research, and cannot be a student. For student projects, the PI is usually the primary supervisor.”

And the link takes you to the main ethics glossary page on the Research Services webpages:

“principal investigator: a person who helps to design and who monitors research carried out by him/herself and/or others, and who assumes responsibility for the ethics standards of that research. In the social sciences and humanities, this person is sometimes called ‘principal researcher’.

Notes: A principal investigator or researcher will normally be an employee of the University, or of one of its constituent colleges, or someone who has been given consent by the head of a department within the University of Oxford to conduct research in conjunction with the University, for example a sabbatical visitor from another university, a person whose research grant is being administered by the University etc. If the principal investigator or researcher does not fall into one of these categories this should be made clear on the application and justified.”

The Faculty's Research Support Team can help you in preparing your Research Ethics application and/or with any questions you may have.

Please get in touch with us if you would like us to assist you:

Karen Eveleigh (Senior Research Facilitator and Law Research Ethics Officer).

and

Armando Román Zozaya (Head of Research and Deputy Head of Admin and Finance).