Research Ethics Guidance

The Department expects all research by its students and staff to be conducted according to expected ethical standards of the discipline and the University. 

The Department of History does not have its own ethics policy or ethics review procedure; rather, we are responsible for administering and applying the University’s Ethics Policy and procedures to research conducted by staff and students in our Department. The University’s Ethics Policy is established by the University Senate, on the advice of the University Research Ethics Committee (UREC). 

All breaches of the University’s Ethics Policy are investigated by UREC: following UREC’s investigations of ethics breaches, researchers in many cases are required to destroy the data collected without ethics approval, along with any analysis/written work based on that data - this can of course have serious consequences for student progress and for the completion of research projects. The main purpose of the Department’s administration of the University Ethics Review Procedure is therefore to facilitate the research undertaken by members of the Department - both staff and students - in a way that protects both our research participants and ourselves. 

In our Department, members of academic staff may interact with the University Ethics Policy in three ways:

• as researchers who may themselves undertake research requiring ethical approval;

• as supervisors of UG, PGT, or PGR students who may undertake research requiring ethical approval;

• as reviewers of ethics applications submitted by students and/or colleagues.

This webpage provides guidance on aspects of the University’s ethics policy and procedures that are most likely to be relevant to staff interacting with the Ethics Policy in one or more of these ways. This page provides more information and context (including links to the extensive guidance available on the University’s central ethics webpages - not all of which is the most student-accessible) than the student-facing ethics guidance on the History Student Hub. UG, PGT, and PGR students should be directed the student-facing ethics guidance on the History Student Hub. 

The University’s Research Ethics Policy applies to all individuals who conduct, or contribute to, research activities that take place within University premises, facilities and/or systems, and to all University staff (including emeritus, honorary and visiting staff) and registered students who conduct, or contribute to, research activities whether these take place within or outside University premises and facilities. It also applies to research activities that are part of a work placement undertaken in fulfilment of a University degree award. (The last ethics breach in our department occurred when students were not aware that ethical approval was required for research activities [interviews] that they undertook as part of a work placement.)

The University’s Ethics Policy and procedures must still be followed by University of Sheffield staff and students even when research funding bodies have their own research ethics policies and/or requirements (these are an extra layer of research ethics governance, not an alternative to the University’s Policy) or when external research collaborators are required to follow the ethics policies and procedures of their own organisations. (In some cases, an external organisation’s ethics review procedure may be deemed sufficiently robust that additional ethical approval via the University of Sheffield’s procedure is not required. See the guidance on the Alternative Ethics Review Procedure for further information).

The University Ethics Policy defines research as ‘creative and systematic work undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge – including knowledge of humankind, culture and society – and to devise new applications of available knowledge.’ This definition also encompasses administrative research that is undertaken within, or on behalf of, undertaken within academic departments, faculties or research centres). Further details of what is included and excluded by this definition of research is covered in Section 2 (‘Scope of this Policy’) of the University Ethics Policy. 

Any research by staff or students that involves human participants (for example, through interviewing or submitting questions, whether face-to-face or via telephone, email, paper or online questionnaire, or through observing material they post on social media) or personal data (i.e. any information that relates to an identifiable living person and that is not already in the public domain) is subject to a formal ethics review, in accordance with the University’s Research Ethics Policy. Research involving human participants or personal data of identifiable living people must not begin before research ethics review has taken place, and approval has been granted. Retrospective ethics review is not permitted.

There is further information below on research that requires ethical approval:

Ethics approval is required before undertaking a research project that will involve interaction with people (including interaction by telephone, email, videoconference, or questionnaire, or by observing material they post on social media) in order to collect their opinions and/or personal information as evidence that will be used to inform or support the research conclusions.

Ethics approval is not required for interaction with people whose opinions or information will not be used as evidence to inform or support the research conclusions. For example, it is - of course - not necessary for students to obtain ethics approval before asking for advice on how to design or conduct their research project from their supervisor, another member of staff in the Department, or another academic elsewhere.

Further information on defining human research participants can be found in the University’s Research Ethics Policy Note on Defining Human Research Participants, Personal Data and Human Tissue, which includes tables of further guidance regarding what constitutes human participation in a research project, and therefore whether or not ethics approval is required.

Social media users are defined as human participants if the researcher is observing their activity or using their data for research purposes. In all cases where social media data is being used for research purposes, ethical approval must be gained prior to collecting and analysing data. The Research Ethics Policy Note on Research Involving Social Media provides further guidance. 

The University’s Research Ethics Policy uses the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) definition of personal data:

‘personal data’: means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural (living) person (“data subject”); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.

Ethics approval is, of course, not required for research in published digital or print media (such as news reports or magazine articles) or public broadcasts, where the publication/broadcast has specifically been made available by an organisation for public consumption.

The University’s Ethics Policy has now been clarified to make clear that ethics approval is not required for archival research that involves accessing data from a publicly accessible archive or a formally constituted repository accessible to scholars, unless the archive/repository itself requires ethics approval to be obtained,

Though most archival research involving the personal data of living people thus does not require ethics review and approval, researchers must comply with all ethical and data protection requirements specified by the archive repository they are accessing, and must comply with their legal data protection responsibilities. These are set out in the University’s Research Ethics Policy Note on Archival Research.

Ethics approval is required before doing any archival research that involves accessing personal data in archival materials (for instance private family collections) that have not been deposited in a publicly accessible archive or other formally constituted repository accessible to scholars. Again, see the University’s Research Ethics Policy Note on Archival Research for further guidance.

Once an individual’s personal data has been robustly anonymised, such that the individual is no longer identifiable, then the data is no longer classed as personal data. However, researchers should consider carefully any situation in which the individual may potentially be re-identified by means that are ‘reasonably likely’ to be used.

For further guidance on issues relating to personal data, see the Research Ethics Policy Note on Principles of Anonymity, Confidentiality and Data Protection. The Royal Historical Society has also produced comprehensive guidance on Data Protection and Historians in the UK (2020). 

On the University’s central ethics webpages there is further guidance and information to help researchers apply for ethical approval. This includes FAQs on the ethics policy and  ten top tips to help applicants complete their ethics application, guidance for staff on completing the application form and on navigating the online ethics review system, guidance on how to compile an Information Sheet to help human participants decide whether to be involved in your project, and an example of a form for use when obtaining participants' consent to be involved in a project.

Supervisors can also direct students to the Brief Student Guide to Research Ethics, and the guidance for students on completing the application form and on navigating the online ethics review system (UG/PGT, PGR). We would also advise that students and supervisors consult this checklist of points to make in your research application, which has been drawn up with History students in mind.

Compulsory training:

The full ethics application form cannot be accessed unless the applicant has completed three compulsory online Information Security courses: Protecting Information (approx. 20 minutes), Protecting Personal Data (approx. 10 minutes), and Protecting Research Data (approx. 10 minutes). The online ethics application system will automatically check the applicant’s training record and notify them which courses need to be completed before beginning their application. 

Oral history interviews are the most common form of research involving human participants and/or personal data that is undertaken by staff and students in the Department of History. If you or one of your students will be submitting an ethics application requesting approval to do oral history interviews, then you may also wish to consult (or to advise your students to consult) the guidance available from the Oral History Society. 

In particular, the Oral History Society provides helpful guidance on conducting oral history legally and ethically, including preparation, first approach, during the interview, after the interview, archiving and storage, dealing with GDPR (the General Data Protection Regulation), frequently asked questions, and further reading. 

When an ethics application is submitted through the online system by a student or member of staff, we are responsible as a department for ensuring that the application is reviewed in accordance with the University Ethics Procedure.

For a staff-led or PGR application, a panel of three ethics reviewers (including one experienced ‘lead reviewer’) is nominated by the Ethics Officer to undertake a research ethics review. None of the ethics reviewers may have any conflict of interest with the application (for PGR applications, for instance, this means that the applicant’s supervisors cannot serve as ethics reviewers). The lead ethics reviewer will – in addition to reviewing the application themselves – consider the comments made by each member of the panel, and make a final decision regarding the outcome and the comments to be communicated to the applicant. 

If the outcome of the application is that compulsory changes are required, the lead ethics reviewer is also responsible for re-reviewing the application when it is revised and resubmitted, and for determining whether all of the required changes have been satisfactorily implemented.

When an undergraduate or postgraduate-taught (PGT) student requires ethics approval for an individual research project, the student’s supervisor is responsible for classifying the research as either ‘low risk’ or ‘potentially high risk.’ Research that is ‘potentially high risk’ will involve ‘particularly vulnerable participants’ (e.g. those who may not be able to exercise informed consent, such as children; those who cannot exercise unfettered informed consent, such as the researcher’s family members; or those whose circumstances may unduly influence their decision to consent, such as people who are in poor health) and/or ‘highly sensitive topics’ (e.g. ethnicity, political opinion, religion, health conditions, sexuality, violence). For further guidance, see Section 3.1.5 of the University Policy on ‘Assessing ethical risk.’

• For a low risk UG or PGT application, only one ethics reviewer – the student’s supervisor – is required. 

• For a UG or PGT application that is judged by the supervisor to be ‘high risk’, a panel of two ethics reviewers undertakes the review: the student’s supervisor and one additional reviewer, nominated by the Ethics Officer. One of the two ethics reviewers will be designated the lead reviewer and will – in addition to reviewing the application themselves – consider the comments made by the other member of the panel, and make a final decision regarding the outcome and the comments to be communicated to the applicant. 

If the outcome of the application is that compulsory changes are required, the lead reviewer is also responsible for re-reviewing the application when it is revised and resubmitted, and for determining whether all of the required changes have been satisfactorily implemented.

In cases in which a panel of either two reviewers (high-risk UG/PGT applications) or three reviewers (all staff/PGR applications) is required, one member of the panel will be an experienced reviewer who will be appointed the ‘lead reviewer.’ The lead ethics reviewer will consider the decision and comments made by each of the reviewers, and make a final decision regarding the outcome and the comments to be communicated to the applicant. The Ethics Officer will then send the outcome to the applicant.

If there is a significant, fundamental difference of opinion between ethics reviewers about the ethics of a proposed piece of research, then the application must be reviewed by a group of at least three members of the Department of History’s Ethics Review Panel, none of whom should have a conflict of interest with the application. Members of the panel are also available to advise applicants or reviewers on complex cases as required.

All members of staff who serve as ethics reviewers must comply with the ethics training requirements laid down by the University Ethics Policy. The Department’s Ethics Officer is required to maintain a departmental ethics training log, and to ensure that colleagues who are nominated as ethics reviewers meet the minimum training requirements before undertaking their reviews.

In order to assist reviewers, UREC provides Guidance for Ethics Reviewers, which includes job descriptions for ethics reviewers and supervisor ethics reviewers, a Reviewer Checklist, a Quick Reference Guide for New Ethics Reviewers, and more detailed Guidance for University Ethics Reviewers. There are also guides to navigating the online ethics review system for reviewers, lead reviewers, and supervisor reviewers.

In our Department, all academic members of staff are members of the pool of ethics reviewers who conduct the ethical review of applications that are submitted through the online system. Service as a (non-supervisory) ethics reviewer is one of the departmental activities that are undertaken on a shared and equitable basis and that are recognised in the Workload Allocation Model through the workload tariff for ‘citizenship.’

One of the responsibilities delegated by UREC to departmental ethics officers is to ensure, as far as possible, an equitable spread of workload between ethics reviewers. In order to ensure equitable and transparent distribution of the workload involved in conducting ethics reviews of staff/PGR ethics applications (as well as serving as a second reviewer on high-risk applications by UG/PGT students), the departmental ethics training log is also used to record past service (and future availability) as an ethics reviewer. Ethics reviewing workload is allocated according to these principles.

UREC expects us to send applicants the final outcomes of the ethics review procedure within 10 working days of each application’s submission. In order to enable us to comply with this expectation, supervisor ethics reviewers of low-risk UG/PGT applications are asked to complete their reviews within 7 working days. For staff/PGR applications and high-risk UG/PGT applications, ethics reviewers are asked to complete their reviews within 4 working days. Lead ethics reviewers are then asked to consider the comments made by each of the reviewers, and to make a final decision, within a further 3 working days. (This leaves 3 working days for the Ethics Officer to oversee the process, including checking applicants have included all necessary information in their application before sending it out for review, nominating reviewers, and sending the final outcome back to the applicant).

If you (or students you are supervising) have any further questions about any aspect of the University’s Research Ethics Policy, or the Department’s administration of the Ethics Approval Procedure, please contact the Department’s Research Ethics Officer, Simon Stevens, or the Department’s Ethics Administrator, Catherine Anderson (c.m.anderson@sheffield.ac.uk)