Additional documents

This page details additional documents or approvals that you may need to obtain prior to research commencing.

Outwith the ethical approval process, the University has a wide range of policies and procedures that apply to its researchers; a selection of these are particularly likely to be relevant to research involving human participants, their data or samples.

This page provides information on that selection of policies and procedures, briefly indicating:

when the policy or procedure might apply
what compliance with the policy of procedure involves
where to go or who to contact for help.

Applicants should indicate in question 31 of their ethical review application form (Word) whether or not their research will require any additional documents or approvals. If applicants have approvals in hand when submitting their application form, they should append those to their application and indicate this in Appendix 1.

Additional documents, ethical approval and responsibilities

Ethical approval is granted on the condition that you obtain any additional documents or approvals before your research commences. However, your School ethics committee (SEC) can require you to have these in place before ethical approval is granted and they can also ask you to evidence these at a later date (i.e. after approval has been granted).

The SEC is not responsible for issuing, reviewing or approving these items. The researcher is personally responsible for ensuring their research is conducted in line with University policies, as per the University's Principles of Good Research Conduct (Policy) (PDF) ; meaning that any additional documents or approvals must be obtained before research starts, if the conditions for requiring these are met.

At the point of applying for ethical approval, if you already have a data management plan, please append it to your ethical application form.

You are not required to produce a data management plan simply for the purposes of securing ethical approval, unless explicitly instructed to do so by your School ethics committee.

The research data management team (research-data@st-andrews.ac.uk, +44 (0)1334 462 343) can help with the writing and reviewing of data management plans; please see the research data management pages.
The University has a legal obligation towards the health and safety of staff and students. It is important that staff and students produce documented risk assessments and get them approved as required by and detailed in the University's health and safety policy.

Please note that the University's health and safety policy defines who is responsible for producing or approving a risk assessment form. School ethics committees do not review or approve risk assessments, although a SEC may choose to make ethical approval conditional upon any appropriate project-specific risk assessments being produced and approved before the research begins.

Should applicants have completed and approved project-specific risk assessments in hand at the point of submitting their ethical review application, they should append those documents to their application.

Environmental Health and Safety Services (EHSS) regularly update the Guidance on Travel and Fieldwork Risk Assessments Moodle site. This is the central point of reference for researchers. The policy on fieldwork for postgraduate research students is an additional point of reference for postgraduate research students.

Responsibilities and contact points

Individual researchers are responsible for familiarising themselves with these policies and guidance, and completing the form in conjunction with their supervisor or manager.

If you require any assistance interpreting the resources or completing the form, contact EHSS or your School health and safety coordinator - contacts can be found here.
It is important that the right insurance is in place for fieldwork and travel abroad.

Researchers must contact the insurance manager prior to booking travel if their plans meet any of the following conditions:
- there any relevant economic (or other) sanctions against the proposed destination
- there any Foreign and Commonwealth Office warnings against travel to that destination
- the trip will last longer than 365 days.
Responsibilities and contact points

Individual researchers are responsible for determining whether their travel plans meet any of the conditions listed above prior to booking travel and contacting the insurance manager.

Details of contact points and the University travel insurance (which you should take with you) are available on the University travel web page.
Researchers will need to obtain either ‘Protecting Vulnerable Groups’ (PVG) or ‘Disclosure and Barring Service’ (DBS) clearance for research involving intentional one-to-one contact with individuals from a vulnerable group that is not supervised by an appropriate person.

Vulnerable groups are:
- Children, defined as individuals under 18 years of age, for which a parent/guardian is an appropriate supervisor; discuss your plans with the Child Panel Representative (bd9@st-andrews.ac.uk) before submitting an ethical application.
- Protected adults. The definition of a protected adult and an appropriate supervisor depends on the characteristics of the individual and the nature of the interaction with them; discuss your plans with Human Resources (lm80@st-andrews.ac.uk) before submitting an ethical application.
For research within Scotland, or outside of the UK altogether, apply to the PVG scheme. For research taking place outside of the UK altogether, you must also observe any local requirements.

For research outside of Scotland but within England or Wales, apply to the DBS scheme. Researchers should liaise with their partner organisation in England or Wales.

Researchers should be aware that in some instances where PVG or DBS is not required, external organisations may still require researchers to be subject to a criminal records check; any requirement for this would be indicated to the researcher by the external organisation they are working with.

Key steps to take when applying for clearance
- Complete the relevant application: PVG or DBS. The latter needs to be done via an organisation based in England or Wales.
- Your School will normally pay the fee for the application – you must discuss this with them and obtain a cost code.
- Students should send their completed application, along with the cost code, to Student Services (theasc@st-andrews.ac.uk).
- Staff should send their completed application, along with the cost code, to Human Resources (lm80@st-andrews.ac.uk).
- Include your certificate with your ethical application (conditional ethical approval may be granted if your clearance is still pending).
Responsibilities and contact points

Individual researchers are responsible for determining whether they require clearances and organising those clearances, using the information and contact points provided here and in the protection of vulnerable groups and criminal records check policy.
When research involves accessing locations such as private land or buildings, or individuals like employees of a company, the School ethics committee will need to see written confirmation from the relevant person or organisation as to whether any approvals or permissions are required to carry out the research. You should append copies of the relevant correspondence to your ethical application.

If any approvals or permissions are required, the SEC will need to see the written approvals or permissions from the relevant person or organisation. You should append copies of these approvals to your ethical application.
Researchers working on projects that involves access, storage, use or dissemination of security-sensitive or extremism-related material (definitions are provided in the form) are required to complete the:
- SSER declaration form (Word)
This may be in addition to a normal ethical application or as a standalone declaration; see the SSER declaration process guidance (PDF) .

The declaration form contains information that is intended to help researchers understand the risks involved in such research and provide information on the storage of such material.

Why this declaration is required

The declaration is intended to provide protection against potential misinterpretation of a researcher's activity by law enforcement authorities.

The declaration is not an application for approval: researchers are not restricted in carrying out such research and do not have to seek prior approval before doing so.

How the declaration is used

Declarations are stored on University’s ethics database.

The declaration form would only be provided to a law enforcement authority if the researcher's activity was under scrutiny by that authority.

The summary information on the first page of the declaration will be seen by UTREC at its monthly meetings as part of its regular monitoring.

Contact

Individual researchers are responsible for familiarising themselves with the form and process guidance, and completing the form accordingly.

If individual researchers require any assistance completing the form, they should contact their School ethics committee using the contact email addresses listed on the SEC page.

School ethics committees can seek advice, if required, from the Prevent Co-Ordinator: chieflegal@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Additional documents

Additional documents, ethical approval and responsibilities

Data management plan

Approval letter - ethical review of research funder

Risk assessments

Insurance documents

Working with vulnerable groups – PVG and DBS clearance

External approvals and permissions (non-ethical)

Security-sensitive and extremism-related declaration