Department of Environment and Geography Ethical Review Committee

Terms of Reference

Terms of Reference

1. To ensure that the principles and standards articulated within the University's ethical framework are upheld in relation to all academic activity undertaken under the University's auspices, including teaching, consultancy, outreach and research;
2. To consider and provide guidance on ethical issues arising from academic activity (e.g. in relation to the funding, conduct, dissemination, collaboration or application of these activities);
3. To consider for formal approval academic activities which fall within the scope of the University's ethical framework, following statutory frameworks where these apply;
4. To refer cases that raise substantial, complex or difficult issues to the University Ethics Committee, as appropriate;
5. To participate in the sharing of practice between subcommittees in order to ensure the quality and equity of ethical decision-making;
6. To work with departmental research committees to raise awareness and understanding of the University's ethical framework amongst those to whom it applies, and to offer informal advice in response to queries;
7. To remain abreast of national and international requirements and standards for ethical review (e.g. emanating from funding bodies) and to facilitate discipline-specific training and guidance within the department/subject area as appropriate;
8. To maintain clear, well-documented and easily accessible audit trails of decisions made by and on behalf of the Committee, including the original proposal, ethics approvals, and any subsequent modifications;
9. To report annually to the University Ethics Committee on the business undertaken by the subcommittee, drawing attention to any general issues.

Agreed by the Environment Department Ethics Committee (08/02/2021)

Mode of Operation

How the Committee Operates

The Ethics Committee meets formally a minimum of three times per academic year, but applications for Ethics Committee approval may be submitted at any time.  As far as possible, an initial decision on applications will be reached within two weeks. In our experience, applicants should submit their Ethics Application at least four weeks before they wish to start collecting data. Carefully considered applications giving full details of the project and how it deals with ethical issues are likely to progress more quickly that cases that need to be referred back to applicants for clarification. 

Students must not submit their application directly to the Ethics Committee but via their supervisor who should first check it. We do not need signed paper copies of applications but by submitting an application the supervisor or PI thereby assumes responsibility for the contents of the application.

Applications and queries should be sent to environment-ethics@york.ac.uk

It is the responsibility of individuals undertaking or supervising research in the Environment Department to inform the committee of the ethical status of their projects and to gain a full review when required (see Apply for Ethical Review tab for further details).

Collaboration

Collaboration with other institutions

If members of staff are involved in research or teaching activities led by a Principal Investigator from another institution and ethics approval has been granted by that institution, it will not normally be necessary to obtain additional ethics approval from the Environment Department Ethics Committee. However, the Environment Department Ethics Committee requires that a copy of the application to the sponsoring institution be submitted to the Chair or Secretary who may decide to circulate it amongst the members.

Apply for Ethical Review

How To Apply For Ethical Review

Departmental Ethics Policy and Procedure

The University of York states in its Code of Practice and Principles for Good Ethical Governance that ‘all activities undertaken by staff and students as members of the University must comply with the University’s ethical standards’. All research projects undertaken by staff and/or students must be submitted to the Departmental ethics committee for scrutiny and approval.

Procedure

1. Staff/Students should complete one of the departmental ethics approval form before commencing their research project. Approval should be sought in the early stages of planning the research and must be submitted to the ethics committee before commencing primary data collection for the project.
2. Students should seek advice from their supervisor regarding ethical approval for their research projects. 
3. If ethical approval is being sought for student led-work then completed applications should be first submitted to the supervisor. The supervisor is then responsible for reviewing the form and forwarding it to the Ethics Committee via the environment-ethics@york.ac.uk e-mail address
4. Any research that involves carrying out procedures on vertebrates or cephalopods should be submitted to the Animal and Welfare Ethical Review Body (AWERB) as opposed to our own ethics committee, even if the work does not require a Home Office Licence (contact the departmental committee for guidance if in doubt)  
5. For those of you conducting research with invertebrates (the only exception being cephalopods) then you can submit an application as normal to our own Departmental ethics committee. 
6. Any additional required forms, such as questionnaires, topic guides, consent forms and privacy notices must also be completed and submitted along with the ethics approval form.
   No primary data collection can begin until you have approval from the Environment department ethics committee
7. Some types of projects will not need full ethical approval such as those that involve collecting air or water samples, and do not involve humans, animals or sensitive ecosystems.  While these will not need full ethical review we ask all researchers to complete the appropriate ethics application to ensure ethics have been considered for all activities
8. You must include finalised questionnaires and project plans with your application. Please provide as much detail as possible.

Forms

Please read How to Apply for Ethical Review (MS Word , 50kb) before choosing one of the three forms most appropriate for your research:

Ethics Form 1 (MS Word , 56kb)   Desk-based research using publicly available data or laboratory work not involving human or animal subjects or materials
Ethics Form 2 (MS Word , 74kb)   Research involving human subjects/participants or using related data not publicly available.
Ethics Form 3 (MS Word , 60kb)   Research involving animal subjects/participants or using related data not publicly available.

Email all applications and queries to environment-ethics@york.ac.uk

The forms for ethics approval, as well as examples of previous applications are available on the VLE at a number of module site, including the Board of Studies site for staff and project sites for students . Students, please talk to your project supervisor about how to complete the form and read through these sample application forms before contacting the Ethics Committee directly.

Privacy Notice (MS Word , 12kb) for Environment and geography projects

The Committee

Peter Barton (External member)
Sally Beckenham
Steve Cinderby (SEIY)
Eleanor Jew
Joshua Kirshner (Deputy Chair)
Colin McClean (Chair)
Jessica Roberts
Laura Smith (Research Facilitator)
Piran White
Xun Zhou