Ethics Board

The aim of the REPHRAIN Ethics Board is to oversee and promote the highest standards of ethics and integrity in all aspects of REPHRAIN’s research.

Conducting research to the highest ethical standard – with robust oversight procedures – will be critical to the success of REPHRAIN in addressing its three missions to deliver socio-technical advances for protecting citizens online.

REPHRAIN places ethical oversight centrally to its research processes, establishing an independent ethical review process to review all research conducted as part of the Centre (both core and commissioned).

The Board operates under the principles set out in UUK’s Concordat to Support Research Integrity, and will further adhere to the UKRI/ESRC core principles for ethical research.

The Ethics process follows two-stages

  • All researchers need to secure ethical approval from their appropriate institutional research ethics committee before applying to the REPHRAIN Ethics Board.
  • Where a project does not ordinarily require ethical review at a host institution (e.g., desk research, secondary data analysis), please submit to the REPHRAIN Ethics Board directly.

Submission to the Ethics Board

Applications should be submitted through our online portal.  All necessary documents should be merged and submitted as a single file (either PDF or Word).

Ethics Board – Membership and Appointment of Chair

  • 2 members from the Strategic Board
  • 3 members from the Principal Investigators in the Centre
  • 3 independent academic members
  • 1 lay member
  • 1 independent academic Chair
  • REPHRAIN Centre Manager

Corinne May-Chahal (Chair) – University of Lancaster
David Ellis – University of Bath
Ingolf Becker – University College London
Richard Owen – University of Bristol
Yvonne Rigby – University of Bristol
Tariq Elahi – University of Edinburgh

Lynne Coventry – University of Abertay
Ruba Abu-Salma – King’s College London
Jason Nurse – University of Kent
Hani Banayoti – CyberSolace
Julia Davidson – University of East London
Mohamed Khamis – University of Glasgow
Robert Schultz-Graham (Secretariat) – University of Bristol

Meeting Schedule

Please note that the Quarterly Ethics Board meetings are to discuss Ethics Board business – all applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.

All meetings are subject to change – please check back regularly for updates.

Please direct any queries to rephrain-centre@bristol.ac.uk

Terms of Reference

Ethics Approval Process (to follow)

Ethics Application Form Template

Resources folder (to follow)