Ethical Approval
The School of Health and Life Sciences prides itself on the quality of its research and researchers. In order to maintain the School's reputation as a centre of research excellence all staff and students who intend to undertake projects involving human participants must follow the correct ethics and governance procedures.
This includes projects which:
- Collect data or samples from people (for example, interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, experimental data, blood and saliva sample)
- Involve experiments which use human participants
- Make use of secondary data sources (for example, records, narratives, blogs)
- Conduct experiments with animals
All staff and students who intend to undertake a project involving work with human participants must secure ethical approval from one of the School of Health and Life Sciences ethics committees before seeking approval from any external committee (e.g. NHS) or commencing the study.
- STEP 1 - Develop idea with team/supervisor and consider the necessary approvals for the project
- STEP 2 - Write EC1 form and study documents (e.g. protocol, consent, participant information sheet)
- STEP 3 - Secure GCU ethical approval from the appropriate committee
- STEP 4 - Secure all necessary external approvals (e.g. NHS, gatekeeper)
- STEP 5 - Start study and keep proof of approvals
It is a mandatory requirement for Chief Investigators to have completed data protection training and to have current Good Clinical Practice training prior to commencing their project.
Further information and/or completed ethics applications should be emailed to the relevant ethics committee:
Life sciences
HLSEthicsLifeSciences@gcu.ac.uk
Nursing and community health
Psychology, social work, and allied health sciences