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School of Environment, Education and Development

Changes to ethics guidance for SEED staff

27 Oct 2025

SEED Associate Directors of Research Ethics Mark Innes and Helen Zheng wish to highlight the recent changes to ethics guidance and remind everyone of the resources available to ensure our students’ research is ethically compliant at all levels.

Changes to ethics guidance

1. The Data Management Plan (DMP)/data management questions have been removed from ethics applications. However, applicants must still familiarise themselves with university guidance on data management protection and follow it. The ethics application system will then request applicants to tick to confirm they have read and understood the policy.

2. There are now two versions of Participant Information Sheets available on the Templates section of the website: Participant Information Sheet template (option 1) or Participant Information Sheet template (option 2) should be used for the majority of studies and adapted to the specifics of your project. The Participant Information Sheet template for anonymous online questionnaire/surveys should only be used for anonymous online surveys/questionnaires that do not collect any personal data, including IP address.

3. Please advise your students to use OneDrive for data storage.

Ethics guidance and the role of the supervisor

Supervisors are the first point of contact for any ethical queries. As such, the role of the supervisors is essential in ensuring that students follow the University’s  Code of Good Research Conduct. The role of supervisor involves many elements, but at its foundation it involves working collaboratively with the student to make sure they complete the ethics decision tool correctly, ensuring that students send them a copy of the outcome of the ethics decision tool for verification and if necessary, correction.

Supervisors should be clear on what constitutes low, medium, and high risk research by consulting the School guidelines. Supervisors with additional queries not covered in the guidelines, or concerns about grey areas, can discuss this with either Mark or Helen, or with the central Ethics Signatory (for high risk UREC applications). As a reminder, projects that are exempt from review are still required to follow general policy and procedure. The Handbook for Supervisors in the Faculty of Humanities by the Research Ethics Team is a vital source of information. For students, there is a Research Ethics Handbook for Students, which contains essential information relating to ethics. There is also a handbook that contains a wealth of information on constructing an ethics application. The University’s central research ethics pages include useful resources including: up to date and GDPR-compliant templates for consent forms, participant information sheets, guidance on methods, distress protocols, and even samples of successful applications. 

The University’s central research ethics pages include useful resources including: up to date and GDPR-compliant templates for consent forms, participant information sheets, guidance on methods, distress protocols, and even samples of successful applications.