All research undertaken within the Department - including funded and non-funded staff research, PhD work, Masters theses and undergraduate dissertations – must comply with the Department’s ethics policy to ensure that research meets agreed ethical principles and any legal requirements. When conducting research, all researchers are made aware of the possible ethical issues involved in carrying out research and are required to ensure that best practice is followed. The Department of Politics and International Relations has a set of procedures and an Ethics Committee that have been established to ensure that the University's guidelines in relation to the ethical conduct of research are followed.
All research is subject to the ethics review procedures and anyone undertaking research is required to read the Department's ethics research guidelines, and to indicate that they have read these, in order to gain ethics approval for their research. The procedures outlined below are designed to meet the University's Code of Practice on Research Ethics. Data should be handled in a manner compliant with both the Data Protection and the Freedom of Information Acts.
Procedure
All new projects require ethics approval. Applications are made online in consultation with your supervisor.
The Department’s Ethics Administrator forwards the applications to an ethics reviewer within the Department who sits on the Department’s Research Committee. It is here that all final decisions on ethics are made.
Following each ethics review, the Ethics Administrator will send an email to the student to confirm that approval has been given and then send an electronic copy of the record of the ethics review outcome to the University's Research Services office. A copy is placed on the student’s file. Supervisors should clarify at the outset of the research student’s registration whether or not ethics approval would be required and an application made by the student ideally early on in the first semester. Ethics approval has to be in place at the time of the student’s Confirmation Review and any change to previously agreed ethics should be indicated on the Confirmation Review Form. The PGR Support Officer will follow up on any missing ethics forms when students’ Confirmation Review meetings are arranged. Students should note that following their Confirmation Review meeting the recommendation that their PhD registration be confirmed cannot be processed unless ethics approval is properly in place.
In the case of ESRC-funded students their ethics form is required to also be assessed externally. The Ethics Administrator will arrange for this assessment to take place.
Research in politics is concerned with developing a knowledge and understanding of government and society. The interaction of people, ideas and institutions provides the focus to understand how values are allocated and resources distributed at many levels, from the local through to the sectoral, national, regional and global. Thus, analyses of who gets what, when, how, why and where are central, and pertain to related questions of power, justice, order, conflict, legitimacy, accountability, obligation, sovereignty and decision-making. Politics encompasses philosophical, theoretical, institutional and issue-based concerns relating to governance.
It is the responsibility of individual researchers to consider any possible ethical or legal implications of research that they are undertaking; and the joint responsibility of supervisors and students to consider these together.
Any research activity that involves human participants should be conducted in a respectful manner. Ethical dilemmas tend to arise in relation to the following issues in the fields of political research: confidentiality, informed consent and anonymity in research involving interviews and/or surveys; research involving the use of politically sensitive information;
Confidentiality is what should be promised if anonymity cannot be maintained and should be assumed if you cannot guarantee anonymity. This requires that you guarantee that no one will be individually identifiable in any way if it is their express wish that their identity is not revealed in any published research output.
If promises of anonymity are made to research respondents then it is essential that these are fulfilled.
Participants in research should be informed of the purpose of the research project and the main uses to which research materials will be put. In the case of interviewees, permission to reproduce direct quotations ought to be obtained from participants. You should strive to be as honest and open with participants as possible, and not expose them to any unnecessary risks when conducting your research.
All research is subject to the University's Safeguarding in Research and Innovation Policy, which sets out the expectations on researchers for anticipating, mitigating and addressing potential exploitation, abuse or harm which may arise during the course or research; the requirements for clear and accessible reporting arrangements in case of any safeguarding concerns; and how the University will respond to incidents or issues which are referred to it. More details on the policy can be found here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/rs/ethicsandintegrity/safeguarding
Before embarking upon fieldwork, all PGR researchers will be required to undertake, complete and have approved the appropriate Risk Assessment forms.