Doctoral Degrees – Applying for Human Research Ethics Approval

Standard Operating Procedure

Human Research Ethics Committee, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town

Doctoral Degrees – Applying for Human Research Ethics Approval

Policy

The Faculty of Health Sciences requires all doctoral degree candidates who undertake research with humans to have a substantive and procedural understanding of human research ethics.¹To this end, each candidate must independently submit to the Human Research Ethics Committee a full research ethics application for review. This must follow scientific review and approval of the research proposal by the relevant Departmental Research Committee. University-wide guidelines for a doctoral degree are available on UCT’s website:

Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to describe the research ethics requirements for candidates wishing to register for a doctoral degree which involves human subjects research. See related Standard Operating Procedure: Definition of Human Research and Human Participants.

Procedure

  1. Each candidate must prepare and submit to the relevant departmental research committee (DRC) a fully developed research proposal for scientific review. The supervisor is expected to play a central role in assisting the candidate to develop a scientifically and ethically sound proposal which meets the University’s standards for a doctoral degree.
  2. Following approval by the DRC, the candidate must submit the proposal for review by the Human Research Ethics Committee. The ethical requirements for human research, and the submission process for research ethics approval, are fully described on the Committee’s website. Candidates can also seek guidance with ethical issues from the Chairperson and/or members of the Human Research Ethics Committee, prior to submission, and during the study.
    Commonly, low-risk research with humans will undergo an expedited review by the Chairperson or a designee. Alternatively, the application may require review by a full Committee at a monthly meeting. Submission and meeting dates are posted on the website.
  3. If the proposal is a sub-study of a larger, existing project which already has a HREC reference number, the doctoral study, if approved, will receive its own reference number which will be linked to the main project. In order to facilitate and coordinate annual approvals of the main project, the candidate, supervisor or overall Principal Investigator can request that the doctoral sub-study be given the same annual re-approval date as the main study.
  4. The doctoral candidate is personally responsible for submitting the human research ethics approval letter to the Post-Graduate Office. This is not the supervisor’s responsibility.
  5. NOTE: the Human Research Ethics Committee does not give retrospective research ethics approval for completed research.

References

  1. Faculty of Health Sciences Handbook 2013: Section FGP8.

Last Revised January 20131