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Research Resources and Policies
Research Data Management
Research data comprises any materials that are collected or created for the purposes of analysis to generate original results. They can be measurements, images, documents, publications in digital or paper format. Each institution has online guidance into research data management, please visit the links below.
Research Ethics
It is important that all research undertaken by SWDTP-funded students respects the six principles of ethical research presented in the ESRC Framework for Research Ethics. These are:
- research should aim to maximise benefit for individuals and society and minimise risk and harm
- the rights and dignity of individuals and groups should be respected
- wherever possible, participation should be voluntary and appropriately informed
- research should be conducted with integrity and transparency
- lines of responsibility and accountability should be clearly defined
- independence of research should be maintained and where conflicts of interest cannot be avoided they should be made explicit.
As a researcher, you should consider ethics issues throughout the lifecycle of your research project and promote a culture of ethical reflection, debate and mutual learning. The lifecycle of research includes the planning and research design stage, the period of funding for the project, and all activities that relate to the project up to, and including, the time when funding has ended. This includes knowledge exchange and impact activities, the dissemination process – including reporting and publication – and the archiving, future use, sharing and linking of data.
Your University will have in place clear, transparent, and effective procedures for ethics review and governance, which will undertake peer review of projects that involve human participants, their tissue and/or data, or which raise other significant ethical concerns. They will require that an ethics review should be carried out before any work requiring ethics review is undertaken. Your University will also have research safeguarding procedures in place to report research misconduct and harm.
As a ESRC-UKRI funded student, you are covered by the UKRI governance of good research practice policy and you should be aware of its guidance: UKRI policy on the governance of good research practice (GRP) – UKRI
The ESRC website contains important and useful information on research ethics, Research ethics guidance – ESRC – UKRI, including the use of research participants. ESRC expects research participant involvement to be on a voluntary basis.
UKRI policy and guidelines on the governance of good research conduct
UKRI Open Access Policy
The Research Councils (formerly RCUK, now part of UKRI) open access policy came into force in April 2013. ESRC-funded researchers are expected to comply with the UKRI open access policy.
Publishing your research findings – UKRI
For articles published in journals, or deposited in institutional or subject-based repositories, the acknowledgement of funding should take the form of a sentence as in the following example, with the funding agency written out in full, followed by the grant number in square brackets:
“This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council [grant number xxxx].”
UKRI centrally provides universities with a grant to assist with publication costs. Please check for support at your home institution.
ResearchFish
All UK Research Councils are keen to collect data showing the impact of their funding – including postgraduate funding. You will be invited to post this in Researchfish – a harmonised Research Council database. If you have any outcomes from your research – collaborations, papers, publications etc. – please post them on Track research and evidence impact with Researchfish by Interfolio. You will receive an invitation to this system from ESRC once you are registered.
ESRC Research Data Policy
Students are advised to refer to the ESRC Research Data Policy (Publishing your research findings – UKRI). ESRC-funded students are strongly encouraged to offer copies of any machine-readable data created or repurposed during the lifetime of the award for deposit in the UK Data Service.
Further guidance on data deposit with the UK Data Service is available at Deposit data — UK Data Service
ESRC-funded students who are likely to produce data of any kind as a result of their grant are recommended to read the UK Data Service data management guides (Research data management — UK Data Service). The UK Data Service will be also pleased to offer any further advice, if required. Any enquiry should be addressed to: Contact — UK Data Service or UK Data Service, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, CO4 3SQ.
Gateway to Research
Data held on Gateway to Research provides information about publications, people, organisations and outcomes relating to publicly funded research projects – GtR (ukri.org)
Information about the scope of data held on this portal can be found here GtR (ukri.org)