How do I apply for ethics approval?
Welcome to the ELMPS Ethics Application Process page. Here you will find upcoming submission dates and instructions for applying for ethical approval from the ELMPS Committee.
Meetings
Upcoming submission dates
- Tuesday 7 January 2025, 4pm
Next ELMPS committee meeting
- Tuesday 28 January 2025, 11am-1pm
Review meetings take place three weeks after submission deadlines, and applicants will be notified of the outcome within one week.
Out of cycle review: To ensure high-quality and considered review, ELMPS has a strong expectation that researchers submit applications within our review cycle. However, out of cycle review is possible in exceptional circumstances. For example in cases where a research opportunity will be lost if applicants have to wait for a decision at the next meeting (whether due to funding or other temporal constraints). If your application meets these conditions, please email the ELMPS ethics committee on elmps-ethics-group@york.ac.uk providing the relevant information.
NB approval timeline: Time from submission to approval varies, and can take anywhere from three weeks to three months or more in exceptional cases. It is important to plan your submission sufficiently in advance of your research start-date to account for this possibility.
Application process
Most applications will include four elements:
- ELMPS Application Form March 2023 (MS Word
, 68kb) - Participant Information Sheet March 2023 (MS Word , 29kb)
- Example Consent form December 2023
- ELMPS Compliance Declaration Form (MS Word , 40kb)
These elements should be submitted as a single PDF document to elmps-ethics-group@york.ac.uk.
In some cases (for example where ethical approval is required but there are no direct human participants, or where cultural norms militate against it) the information sheet and consent form may not be required. If you are unsure, please check with your departmental rep(s).
NB: If you are conducting a survey, it will be sufficient to provide information about the project in an appropriate format for the survey and a clear link to the Privacy Notice. You may also use the start of the survey to gain consent.
The revised version of the GDPR compliant PIS template comprises two separate documents (i) the information to be provided about the specific project and (ii) the University’s generic privacy notice.
For potentially high-risk data processing, please consult the Data Protection Impact Assessment website.
Further Information
ELMPS Specific Guidance
- For researchers planning to research York students, including to study pedagogy, please see: ELMPS Guidelines for Research Involving Students and Usage of their Data (MS Word , 19kb)
University Guidance
- For university guidelines on research ethics, see York’s code of practice and principles for good ethical governance
- For researchers conducting studies outside of the UK, please see York’s guidance for conducting research outside the UK
- For researchers conducting studies related to terrorism, with human subjects or not, please see York’s guidance on Prevent
- For researchers using social media data, please see York’s guidance on using social media data in research
- For researchers conducting research that requires travel, consult York’s travel insurance page (including risk assessment information).
Common Mistakes
All ethics applications are different and raise different questions and concerns. This is the nature of ethical reflection and inquiry. However, there are a number of common issues that arise:
- Incomplete or inconsistent application materials: Please be sure to complete all sections of the application and ensure that you are consistent across materials. If the committee has incomplete or contradictory information, it is difficult to assess potential ethical issues.
- Insufficient attention to anonymity: Consider, for example, if and how you can genuinely ensure anonymity to respondents. For example, if you are conducting focus group interviews, respondents will be known to one another; if you are interviewing people with a highly specific job role within an organisation they may be publicly identifiable. Complete anonymity is not a blanket requirement, rather it is important to think carefully about how you will treat the information that respondents provide to you, and ensure that your research does not cause unanticipated harms.
- Insufficient attention to risks for the researcher: For example, where research is planned in potentially dangerous settings, risk mitigation strategies may include:
- inform someone of your whereabouts before each interview, check-in with a designated friend or colleague after you complete each interview, and/or identify an emergency contact in the research site;
- if the research topic is potentially sensitive or may be distressing to the researcher, outline strategies to manage both respondent and researcher wellbeing, e.g., for respondent you may identify referral organisations, for the researcher, consider regular debriefing sessions;
- if research requires international travel, note that you will consult / have consulted York’s travel and risk-assessment guidelines.
NHS and Social Services applications
If you are collecting data from NHS patients or staff, or Social Services employees or service users, you will need to apply for approval through the Integrated Research Application System (IRAS), see the IRAS website for further instructions.
- For staff: Please send a copy of your IRAS approval to ELMPS.
- For PGR students: Before sending your application to IRAS, please submit it for pre-review to ELMPS.