Do you know whether your research needs ethical review or not? This is a general note about the importance of submitting ethics applications before research begins. It is an essential requirement of UT policy that research (directly and indirectly) involving humans receives clearance from the (domain-specific) ethics committee before the research can begin. Further to this, academic publishers will likely not accept an article involving human research subjects without evidence of ethics committee approval.
This means that any research with human subjects must be submitted via the Ethical Review tool early in the process, to give the ethics committee time to properly review a research application. You also need to factor in time for the approval of your supervisor, any changes/clarifications that come from the committee, and for those changes/clarifications to be reviewed again by the committee prior to the start of the research. Please bear in mind that the ethics committee aims to review applications within 14 days of submission. We therefore strongly recommend that any research application involving human research subjects be submitted a minimum of 4-6 weeks before the research begins.
We also strongly recommend that research in which there are likely ethical hazards in virtue of personal/privacy-related research data being gathered, the vulnerability of research subjects (and potential vulnerabilities of researchers themselves), should be submitted more than one month before the research begins.
This advice is also relevant for supervisors of ba/ma- thesis students. You will need to guide your students in research design, and help them to factor in the time needed for ethics review and for any changes and clarifications. It is an important learning exercise for students to undergo an ethics application and review, such that they understand the process, and can use that knowledge in their future work.
We recommend using our own BMS Ethical Review tool. There is also a UT Ethical Review tool, in which you could submit to another domain if applicable, however, this tool is undergoing a major update to fulfill our requirements and therefore is not preferred yet.
