No Submission

No submission necessary

Not all research requires an application to REC. Such exempted research would be projects that do not involve animals or humans as participants or subjects. This includes:

• Research on publically available information or records, such as: political speeches or debates; newspapers; opinion pieces; open-source qualitative data; company mission statements, etc.
• Projects involving assessment or audit of standard practice, such as clinical audit or assessment of teaching practice. The focus of exempted projects should be on-going practice or learning. The boundary between audit and research is not clear-cut, especially if the intention is to publish the results of such studies. Researchers should evaluate whether journals in their field will expect such projects to have received formal ethical approval.