Question-Specific Advice for Stage 1

Question-Specific Advice for Stage 1

Research Ethics Application Form

involvingAnimal and Habitats (A&H)

If you require this document in an alternative format (Braille, large print, audio, electronic) please contact Julie Scott, Research Ethics and Integrity Manager, on telephone number 01245684210 or email address

Please note that ethics applications for research involving animals and habitats must be submitted to the Life Sciences (Animal and Environmental Biology) Department Research Ethics Panel in the first instance. For details see:

Safeguarding training

If you are carrying out research with children or vulnerable adults, you may need to complete the online Safeguarding course, available at:

At the end of the course you must take the quiz, achieving at least 80%, confirmation of which must be submitted with your ethics application. If you have any problems accessing the course, please email .

If you have significant experience of working with children or vulnerable adults, you can request course exemption from your FREP Chair.

Ethical approval and other permissions

It is your responsibility to ensure that you obtain appropriate permission or ethical approvals from organisations involved in your research and also that you adhere to any other requirements (e.g. Risk Assessment, Travel Insurance, Disclosure and Barring Service Check). Please refer to the Code of Practice for further information.

Research falling under the red or purple category

Please note that any research that falls under the red or purple categories (Questions 22- 35 on the Stage 1 Research Ethics Application Form) is unlikely to be suitable for Undergraduate or Masters’ student research. If you are an Undergraduate or Masters studentthinking of doing any research that might fall under the red and purple category, please speak to your Supervisor and FREP Chair in the first instance.

Questions on checklist of Stage 1 Research Ethics Application Form (Animals and Habitats)

Will your research?

Involve gathering or preparing non-living biological samples not heldalready ina university, museum or other research collections?

You should tick yes if you are gathering or preparing non-living biological samples yourself, e.g. road-kills, or if you are using samples held by friends, or those you purchase. In these cases there are risks that the samples have been obtained unethically and it may also be illegal to hold them under CITES or the Habitats Regulations, e.g. the possession of dead bats or of ivory that is not ancient. Research collections may be held by universities, museums and other recognised research institutions. If your work involves human remains, recent or ancient, you must tick yes under Question 32.

2.Involve scarce, vulnerable or protected species, habitats or sites?

You should tick yes for any species or habitat that is on an official list as scarce, vulnerable or protected (please specify what designations apply), and for any site that is a nature reserve, SSSI, County Wildlife Site (or equivalent) etc.. Please also tick yes if it is quite possible that you may encounter a protected species incidentally as part of the research, e.g. trap one in traps set out for another species, or disturb when walking about, e.g. ground-nesting birds.

If you tick yes, please explain in Section 4 what species, habitats or sites you plan to work with. Please explain how you will minimise impacts. Please explain what you will do about lodging your data, e.g. with a biological records centre, or how you will handle sensitive information such as the location of a persecuted bird’s nest. Remember to list the licences and permissions you have; licences are required even to search for some species, e.g. for ‘torching’ for newts in ponds.

3.Involve invertebrates (other than cephalopods or decapod crustaceans)?

Work on invertebrates includes both intentional interactions and incidental interactions as part of other studies, e.g. on plants.

Animal and environmental researchers quite often gather living material, perhaps catching animals, harvesting plants, and environmental samples that may have organisms living in it. Sometimes it is best to release samples back into the settings they were taken from, but even this can cause problems – it would not be sufficient to take insects from under bark and just put them back on the ground nearby, for instance. It may be necessary or most humane to kill animals, e.g. it is illegal to release grey squirrels, and in such cases you will need to think carefully how to do this – don’t just leave samples of insects to die gradually by neglect in pots, for instance. You should also consider if you should retain or deposit somewhere your specimens as a reference collection or vouchers so that other researchers can access them in future. If they are to be ‘thrown away’ might they be a health hazard, contaminate an environment (e.g. invasive species), or be controlled waste (Japanese Knotweed).

If yes please explain in Section 4 how you will minimise harm or death to individuals and minimise the impact on local populations and habitats. Please also remember to explain how you will release or kill them.

4.Manipulate the environment, including introducing new species or destructive collecting/harvesting?

Potential manipulations are very diverse. Some possible examples include: introducing novel genomes (non-local provenance, specially bred, species new to the site, (also answer questions 22 and 23 for GMOs) – even accidentally or incidentally, e.g. on boots), use of chemicals (including radioactive tracers), equipment that might be left or lost on site, enclosures and exclosures, grazing regimes, altered hydrology, harvesting or collecting methods that are destructive.

5.Include work on live decapod crustaceans, cephalopods or vertebrates?

(If YES please answer the following questions 6-12. If NO go to Question 13).

Cephalopods and vertebrates fall under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 as amended, as they are considered significantly sentient – and our university believes that decapods should receive equal consideration. They must be treated with special care and, for several procedures, licences are required. Please make sure you are fully familiar with legal requirements if you intend to study these animals. The following questions will allow you and the ethics panel to judge if their welfare will be sufficiently protected.

Vertebrates also fall under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 with extra provision for ‘protected animals’, i.e. pets and farm animals. This act prevents harm and unnecessary suffering to animals and imposes a duty to promote the welfare of animals for which one is responsible. In particular, one must meet an animal’s need for a suitable environment, for a suitable diet, to be able to exhibit normal behaviour patterns, any need it has to be housed with, or apart from, other animals, and to be protected from pain, suffering, injury and disease.

If yes please explain in Section 4 what species you are working with. If you will be responsible housing any animals, please explain how they will be kept in the light of the government advice “Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Bred, Supplied or Used for Scientific Purposes”.

6.Include observation of any free-living or captive animals?

Even animals that are ‘used to’ observations by humans, e.g. those in zoos or rehoming centres or birds beside a public footpath, can be significantly disturbed by observation by researchers and so you must tick yes to all observation. The reason is that researchers will be behaving unusually, stopping for longer, watching more intently, perhaps using cameras or binoculars.

Explain how you will prevent disturbance, disruption or distress to the animals, e.g. using remote sensors, keeping distances, moving away when their behaviour changes. Note: it is illegal to disturb birds at their nests, to disturb seals at the haul-out sites in Scotland, and to disturb European Protected Species.

7.Risk causing pain, suffering, psychological or physical harm to an animal?

This is clearly a very important question and very wide-ranging. Please think about this carefully and explain how harm will be avoided. It may not be legally possible to conduct the research at Anglia Ruskin University.

An intervention(s) that may cause pain, suffering, psychological or physical harm to an animal, being conducted for the purpose of your research, constitutes a procedure under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Anglia Ruskin University does not hold a licence under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and therefore our ethics committees cannot approve such studies.

Researchers may propose to monitor responses or free-living animal(s) in wild or commensal environments, or a captive animal’s responses to standard husbandry activities that would take place without the researcher’s request. These and other proposals with risk of harm will be given careful consideration by the DREP and may be referred to the FREP. If necessary advice may be obtained from the Home Office Inspectorate for the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act.

8.Involve removal of biological material directly from a live animal?

Direct removal from live animals is highly unlikely to be approved. However, you must also consider any distress or physical harm that could be caused by collecting biological material indirectly, such as free-flow urine samples.

One procedure among many that requires an A(SP)A licence is any penetration of the skin or body cavity. However, it may be possible to gather data from interventions undertaken for veterinary or husbandry purposes, e.g. asking vets to report the body temperatures of animals they have taken for veterinary purposes in consultations. See also Question 12.

9.Involve manipulating an animal’s environment for the explicit purpose of your study?

Manipulations might include environmental enrichment, light regimes, temperature regimes, social groupings, access indoors or outdoors.

Please explain if the manipulation is being performed anyway for husbandry or habitat management purposes. Otherwise, only manipulations that are likely to improve animal welfare will be considered. Welfare monitoring and mitigation processes must be explained in case either the provision or the subsequent removal causes distress or harm to the animal subjects or to other animals living near them.

10.Involve the a) breeding of animalsand/orb) animals that are either pregnant or raising young?

Is a breeding programme involved, if so, what dangers might there be to mothers or offspring? Will the study focus on mothering animals and young or include them incidentally in the sampling process? What special provisions will be included for their welfare? Don’t forget that impacts on mothers may have life-long impacts on foetuses and neonates.

11.Involve manipulation of an animal’s diet or drinking water?

This is only likely to be considered if a qualified veterinary surgeon or animal nutritionist has confirmed that the manipulation will cause no short- or long-term harm and that the animal, and others housed with them, is not likely to suffer any psychological harm as a result.

12.Involve human participants?

This question includes both direct and indirect contact with human participants. Examples of direct contact with human participants include interviewing people or taking measures from them. Indirect contact includes sending questionnaires to people in the post, obtaining data about people on-line including through social media forums, or accessing personal records or data. Ethical issues can arise even when there is no direct human contact. For example, questionnaires might contain questions that respondents could find upsetting and you cannot just usepersonal data or records relating to participants if they have been collected for another purpose and participants have not given consent for their records to be used for research.

Please note that ethical approval may be required for the re-use of secondary data. Research involving the analysis of pre-existing data may require ethical approval if the data is not available in the public domain. If the pre-existing data is not in the public domain and is identifiable you will require ethical approval before you access the data.

If your research involves human participants in any way you need to consider whether your actions could be in any way upsetting or gather data that may contravene any legislation, such as the Data Protection Act (1998).

13. Create a risk that individuals and/or organisations could be identified in the outputs?

If you have a personal or professional relationship with any potential participants, other than that of researcher-participant, special care must be taken to ensure that they do not feel obliged to take part in your research. This is particularly important in situations where the researcher may, in their other relationships, be more senior than, or in a position of power over the participant. In such cases, the potential participants may feel that their relationship with the researcher in those external contexts may be detrimentally affected if they elect not to participate.

Please also see the Research Ethics Guidebook:

You also need to consider whether there are any conflicts of interest. This could relate to the organisation funding the research or any dual role you have as researcher/employee, for example. Conflicts of interest do not usually prevent you from doing the research, but they should be declared in your ethics application and on the Participant Information Sheet.

14. Involve participants whose response may be influenced by your relationship withthem or by any perceived, or real,conflicts of interest?

Please also see the Research Ethics Guidebook:

15. Involve the co-operation of a ‘gatekeeper’ to gain access to participants (for example, a pet owner or zoo, a company manager or a head teacher)?

If you are working with pets or stock, you will need the permissions of their owners. You may also need permissions from landowners, e.g. farmers, stables, or zoos. Where you are dealing with one or two ‘gatekeepers’ (e.g. vet practice, farmer, reserve manager) please attach copies of these permissions; if you will need permissions from several people (e.g. owners of individual pets), explain how you will obtain informed permissions in Section 4. You may need to supply printed Owner Information Sheets (OIS) and to obtain written permission on Owner Permission Forms (OPF), if so, please use the standard templates available at

A lighter touch may be adequate in other circumstances. You may need a licence to work with protected species or to work on a nature reserve.

You must ensure that you have written permission to conduct and produce research outputs from any organisations where you will be carrying out research. This must be from someone appropriately senior in the organisation. You must ensure that you have written permission for the use and ownership of data and the right to publish findings. If you wish to name the organisation in dissemination, you must also obtain written permission for this. Please note that written permission is not the same as consent. Consent to take part in the research can only be obtained from individual participants.

In addition to this, you may need further permission from gatekeepers or managers at less senior levels. You need to provide details about how you will negotiate this.

Guidance for the permission letter is available at:

16. Offer financial or other forms of incentives to participants?

Careful consideration must be given if you are planning to pay participants, or provide other types of reward (e.g. vouchers) for participation, as this could lead an individual to participate in an activity they would normally be reluctant to engage with. You must provide detailed information in your ethics application about payments or other rewards offered to participants. You should not pay participants at a level which is likely to invalidate consent and must take into account your participant group when considering this (e.g. lower income groups may be more likely to be influenced by monetary rewards). You should also consider whether you could pay participants at the end of the study and not make them aware of the payment before they participate, as this may help ensure that consent is not influenced.