1. INTRODUCTION

Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB) recognizes research and research-led teaching as primary responsibilities of its academic staff. It places value on fostering, publishing, and disseminating research of high international quality.

The paramount principle governing any UTB research involving human participants, animal subjects, and personal data is the respect for participants’ dignity, rights, safety and well-being.

The University must ensure that it maintains the highest ethical standards. Dishonesty of any kind in research or conducting research activities that violate ethical principles adopted by the University is unacceptable. Such violations damage the search for truth, University reputation, the individual(s) themselves, their colleagues as well as the general community.

“Researchers have an obligation to ensure that their research is conducted with:

• Honesty,
• Integrity,
• Minimal possible risk to participants and to themselves,
• Minimal suffering of animal subjects,
• Identified and controlled environmental effects, and
• Respect for other people, their values and their rights

Guidance on the interpretation and application of these principles is detailed in this Policy document.

The University’s Research Ethics Policy and Procedures recognise that the responsibility for maintaining ethical conduct lies, in the first instance, with researchers themselves. If researchers do not take responsibility for the ethical conduct of their own research, defensible research ethics will be an unrealisable goal. To this end, responsibility for operating the University’s ethics review procedure, informed by the Policy, is devolved to academic faculties, schools, and academic and research centres. This means that the formal ethical review of research proposals involving human participants, animal subjects, and personal data is best carried out by faculties or schools or centres, within the broad parameters provided by this Policy and the research ethics approval Procedure. The key principle underlying the research ethics approval procedure is that researchers should reflect on the ethical issues that are raised by their research and be able to justify, in ethical terms, the practices and procedures that they intend to adopt in their research activities. Matters of research ethics are not always ‘black and white’, and there is no ‘one size fits all approach’. This Policy, therefore, aims to set a clear framework and guiding principles to assist researchers in addressing the ethical issues that may arise in the course of their research.”

2. OBJECTIVES AND SCOPES

The Policy is intended to:

• protect the dignity, rights, safety and well-being of participants;
• codify the University’s position on research ethics for research;
• demonstrate a commitment to high quality, transparent and accountable research ethics throughout the University, from senior management policy-making to the practicalities of individual staff and student research projects;
• warrant and inform the operation of the University’s ethics review procedure within faculties, schools, and centres;
• provide guidance on research ethics involving human participants, animal subjects, and personal data for all staff and students;
• encourage an organisational research culture based upon defensible standards of research practice;
• reduce risks to the University, faculty/school/centre, and individual researchers;
• strengthen the eligibility and quality of University research funding applications;
• enhance the University’s reputation with the general public and wider society, within the academic professions, and with funding bodies and external auditors.

The University’s Research Ethics Policy applies to:

• all University staff and registered students who conduct, or contribute to, research activities involving human participants, animal subjects, or personal data, whether these take place within or outside University premises and facilities, or are part of a work placement undertaken in fulfilment of a University degree award; and
• all individuals who, although they are not members of the University, conduct, or contribute to, research activities involving human participants, animal subjects, or personal data that take place within University premises and facilities.

External bodies, such as research funding bodies, some public-sector social care providers or the armed forces, have their own research ethics policies and review procedures. However, the University’s Policy and procedures must still be followed in any collaborative research that involves UTB staff or students.

Ethics Coordinator:

Further information on UTB Research Ethics Policy and Procedures can be found at Graduate Studies and Research Office Staff Portal