Guidance topics

Access research ethics guidance by topic below.

Research participants

Consent 

• Economic and Social Research Council: Informed Consent
• Social Research Association: Ethics Guidelines: Informed Consent
• Wellcome Trust: Research involving human participants: Consent from research participants
• Medical Research Council: Medical research involving adults who cannot consent
• The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA)

• Consent and participant information: HRA guidance

Risk and benefit

• Economic and Social Research Council: Risk and benefit
• Social Research Association: Research Ethics Guidance: Avoiding Harm
• Wellcome Trust: Research involving human participants: Participants' rights, interests and safety  
• The British Psychological Society: Deceptive research
• The British Psychological Society: Deception debriefing

Research with potentially vulnerable people

• Economic and Social Research Council: Research with potentially vulnerable people
• The Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA)
• Market Research Society (MRS): MRS Best Practice Guide on Research Participant Vulnerability
• Nuffield Council on Bioethics: Dementia: Ethical Issues

Participant data

• UCL Data Protection
• UCL Practical Data Protection Guidance Notices
• UK Data Service: Research data management
• Wellcome Trust: Research involving human participants
• Economic and Social Research Council: Data requirements

Research with children and young people

For more guidance on research with children and young people please see our webpage: Research with children and young people

Working with Human Tissue

• UCL Human Tissue Biobanks
• UCL Guidance on Human Tissue Act
• Relevant material under the Human Tissue Act 2004
• Human Tissue Act: Codes of Practise
• Human Tissue (Scotland) Act 2006 
• Medical Research Council (MRC): Use of human samples in medical research
• UKRI: Global bioethics
• UKRI: Research using human samples
• The Medical Research Council (MRC) Ethics Series: Human tissue and biological samples for use in research (2014)

Overseas research

• ESRC: International research
• Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Foreign travel advice
• Global Code of Conduct For Research in Resource-Poor Settings

Internet mediated research

• Economic and Social Research Council: Internet mediated research
• British Psychological Society: Ethics guidelines for internet-mediated research

• Association of Internet Researchers: Ethics guide

• Nicolas Gold, Using Twitter Data in Research Guidance for Researchers and Ethics Reviewers.  UCL Department of Computer Science, (2021)

  Nicolas Gold, Using Twitter Data in Research Guidance for Researchers and Ethics Reviewers.  UCL Department of Computer Science, (2021)

Information/data sources

• Nicolas Gold, Ethics Issues in Custom Software and App-Based Research Experience and Data Collection. UCL Department of Computer Science, (2020)

  Nicolas Gold, Ethics Issues in Custom Software and App-Based Research Experience and Data Collection. UCL Department of Computer Science, (2020)

• Nicolas Gold, Jens Krinke, Ethical Mining: A Case Study on MSR Mining Challenges. UCL Department of Computer Science, (2020)

  Nicolas Gold, Jens Krinke, Ethical Mining: A Case Study on MSR Mining Challenges. UCL Department of Computer Science, (2020)

Legal responsibilities in research

• Guidance for Researchers: Implications of GDPR and DPA 2018, UCL Legal Services Data Protection Office
• Research with Children: Guidance on Data Protection Issues, UCL Legal Services Data Protection Office
• Safeguarding Policies, UCL Human Resources 

General ethical guidance

• Economic and Social Research Council: Research Ethics Guidance (guidance for applicants)
• British Psychological Society: Code of human research ethics
• Medical Research Council: Good research practice
• Medical Research Council (MRC) Ethics Series 
• Wellcome Trust: Guidelines on Good Research Practice
• Health Research Authority
• Health Research Authority: Do I need NHS REC approval
• Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK and the Commonwealth: Ethical guidelines for good research practice
• British Society of Criminology: Statement of ethics
• Committee on Publication Ethics guidelines
• International Visual Sociology Association: Code of Research Ethics and Guidelines
• Central Digital and Data Office: Data Ethics Framework, 2018
• UK Government: Rigour, respect, responsibility: a universal ethical code for scientists
• Social Research Association: Ethics Guidelines