Ethics: Further Details
All researchers embarked on research involving human participants or storage of personal data to consider the ethical risks of their work and, in case of doubt, seek confirmation from the Faculty Ethics Committee. Please discuss any such research with either of the Faculty Research Directors. Data storage must conform to data protection legislation.
In most cases approval is a simple matter, but if further review of complex or high-risk cases is required it may be dealt with the Human and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee (HSS REC) or other bodies within the university. All review procedures am to be reasonable and proportionate.
The Research Operations Office website on Ethics in Research gives details of how ethical approval is managed within the University.
This brief checklist outlines but does not exhaust the areas that might require ethical consideration:
- Harm or burden to those involved in or affected by research must be minimised in all instances and all participants must be warned in advance about any potential risks of harm, however slight these might seem.
- Researchers are required to consider the ethical risk of any procedure within a research project which involves human participants or personal data.
In the case of Historians, such issues are most likely to arise in the case of oral histories and/or the provision of private information about individuals. In all research involving interviews it is expected that participants will be made fully aware of the purposes of research, the uses to which the information they provide may be put, and have clear means of expressing consent (or subsequently withdrawing it) for their participation.
However all historians should give consideration to the possibility of harm arising from their research, and the possibility of participants or others being exposed to risk or trauma.
A fuller list of issues for consideration is provided by the Policy Statement of the University Research Ethics Committee
Data Protection
Researchers should also be aware of data protection issues that arise as a result of conducting research. In particular, you should keep in mind that when using cloud-based storage, or programmes such as Evernote, data will be crossing international borders even if your research does not. This means you should be aware of any issues raised concerning not only the security of your own research data, but also the legal issues surrounding data protection of all personal data. Further information on data protection can be found at the following places: