PSYCHOLOGY ETHICS COMMITTEE
Welcome to the Psychology Ethics Committee home page
The Psychology Ethics Committee is based within the Psychology Department, School of Science, Faculty of Education Health and Sciences. It is chaired and run by members of staff within the Psychology Department and serves to review and grant ethical approval for any research conducted by staff or postgraduate students within the Department. It also reviews applications from researchers external to the Department who would like to conduct research using equipment within the Department or would like to recruit Psychology students or staff as participants.
Information on this page will guide you through the ethics application process. If you have any queries regarding the Ethics Committee or submitting an ethics application, please contact the Chair, Prof James Elander, or the Deputy Chair, Dr Chris Barnes (contact details are below).
When do I need to apply for ethical approval?
If you are a member of staff or a postgraduate student within the Psychology Department wishing to undertake ANY piece of research, you will need to apply for ethical approval through this Committee before you can collect data. If you are a researcher external to the Psychology Department and you wish to conduct any research using psychology students or staff as participants, or would like to use any of the equipment owned by psychology to conduct research, you will need to apply to this Committee before you can collect any data.
Exceptions to this rule are:
1. You are a member of staff or a postgraduate student within the Psychology Department and are conducted research where NHS Research Ethics Committee approval is being sought. In this instance the Chair of the Psychology Ethics Committee only requires a copy of the NHS ethics application and a copy of the approval letter for recording and auditing purposes.
2. You are a researcher external to the University and are conducting collaborative research with a member or members of Psychology staff within the Department and have secured ethical approval for your research at your host Institution. However, if you intend to run any research project on University of Derby premises you must get ethical approval from the Psychology Ethics Committee at the University of Derby.
3. If you are an UG or MSc student of the University of Derby, who is conducting research for their Independent Studies (IS), you will be given ethical approval through the IS ethics committee. Please see your relevant IS module leader or look at the IS module web page for more information.
Please be aware that you will need to have ethical approval from the Psychology Ethics Committee and be in receipt of your ethics approval form before you can begin to collect any data for your research study.
How do I apply for ethical approval?
You will need to complete an ethics form and return this to the Chair of the Ethics Committee (using the email address below), and copying to the Deputy Chair. In addition to this form, you will also need to supply any supplementary information, depending on the nature of your study. This may be copies of any questionnaires you wish to use, information sheets, consent forms or interview questions.
The Committee meets once a month and there is a deadline prior to each meeting for submitting applications. The schedule of application deadlines and meeting dates is given below.
|
Application deadline |
Meeting date |
|
Friday 26 March 2010 |
Monday 19 April 2010 |
|
Friday 30 April 2010 |
Monday 17 May 2010 |
|
Friday 28 May 2010 |
Monday 14 June 2010 |
|
Friday 25 June 2010 |
Monday 12 July 2010 |
|
Friday 30 July 2010 |
Monday 16 August, 2010 |
|
Friday 27 August 2010 |
Monday 13 Sept 2010 |
|
Friday 24 Sept 2010 |
Monday 11 Oct 2010 |
|
Friday 29 Oct 2010 |
Monday 15 Nov 2010 |
|
Friday 26 Nov 2010 |
Monday 13 Dec 2010 |
|
Friday 24 Dec 2010 |
Monday 17 Jan 2011 |
You will receive feedback and decision within one week of the meeting. Outcomes are in the form of one of the following decisions from the Committee:
1. Ethical approval granted in full and you can commence data collection immediately.
2. Clarification on certain points or further documentation may be requested. Once you have responded to these points you will receive ethical approval via Chairs action (i.e. the application will not need to be reviewed by the next Committee meeting).
3. Substantial review of the ethics application is needed and it needs to be re-submitted to the next meeting of the Ethics Committee.
4. Ethics Committee is not able to decide and refers the application to Faculty Research Committee or University Ethics Committee.
5. Ethics application is denied outright.
(N.B. It is extremely rare for the Psychology Ethics Committee to be unable to make a decision on an ethics application, refer it, or to deny ethical approval outright).
Once a decision has been reached you will receive an ethical approval form. You will then be able to begin collecting data.
To download a copy of the ethics application form please click here. The form is a word document that you can type directly into. Please do not complete the form by hand as handwritten forms cannot be accepted by the Committee.
Please submit ethics application forms and direct any enquiries to:
Prof James Elander and Dr Chris Barnes
Chair and Deputy Chair of the Psychology Research Ethics Committee
Psychology, School of Science
Faculty of Education, Health and Sciences
University of Derby
Derby
DE22 1GB
Email: j.elander@derby.ac.uk and c.barnes1@derby.ac.uk