Unisa employees and postgraduate students are internal applicants. They must apply through the College, School or Departmental ERCs based on their research's risk level [link to SOP on Research Ethics Risk Assessment]. Negligible and low-risk research can be expedited, while a full committee is responsible for reviewing medium and high risk research. Departmental ERCs review negligible and low-risk applications, whilemedium and high-risk applications are reviewed by College ERCs.
In compliance with the NHREC, all health and health-related research must obtain ethics approval certificate from an ERC that is registered with the NHREC. The Unisa ERCs that are registered with the NHREC are:
Unisa has two Research Ethics Committees registered to the National Health Research Ethics Council (NHREC) that reviews health research: College of Human Sciences REC and College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences REC.
Unisa employees who are registered for a qualification with another institution and wishing to conduct research involving Unisa employees, students and data for the purpose of their studies, are regarded as non-Unisa (external) applicants.
Researchers and students from other universities who wish to conduct research involving Unisa employees, students and data are regarded as non-Unisa (external) applicants.
Non-Unisa (external) applicants who wish to conduct research involving Unisa employees, students and data must first obtain ethics approval certificate from their institutions before they apply for ethics approval certificate through URERC.
Applications for ethics approval that carry negligible (non-human participants) and low risk may be expedited and the decision will then be ratified in the URERC meeting. They do not have to wait for the full meeting to be reviewed.
Standard Operating Procedure on applying for ethics approval from URERC
Unisa applicants
Research ethics operationalization at Unisa is decentralized, due to the size of the institution. Unisa students are classified as internal applicant and will apply for ethics approval certificate at the College that they are affiliated with. Please contact the ethics administrator of your College to obtain the application form.
Please read the questions on the application form carefully to ensure that you understand what is being required. Please answer each question fully, to provide the committee that will be reviewing your application with adequate information to enable them to make a fair and informed decision about your application. Please email the application form, together with other supporting documents to the administrator or chairperson, using the email provided on the application form.
When submitting your application form, please also submit the following:
Last modified: Mon Aug 07 17:24:44 SAST 2023