On this page

• What an ethical breach is
• How to avoid ethical breach in your research
• If you are suspected of an ethical breach
• Get advice on ethical breaches

What an ethical breach is

An ethical breach happens when you do not meet the ethical standards in your research (for example, dissertation) by:

• not gaining ethical approval before doing your research (where it is required)
• making significant changes to the reviewed and approved research without getting it reapproved
• unethical behaviour in the conduct of research (for example, about research subjects)
• using confidential information without permission
• deviating (moving away) from good research practice, resulting in potential harm to people, animals or the environment
• misrepresenting participant views in your research outcomes by modifying or leaving out data that do not fit the expected results
• not getting informed consent
• breaking confidentiality, or sharing sensitive identifiable information without permission

This list is not complete. More examples can be found in the regulations on research misconduct (PDF).

How to avoid ethical breach in your research

To avoid ethical breach in your research, you should:

• Speak to supervisor:

Discuss your project with your supervisor as soon as possible. If your project involves collecting primary data, ask your supervisor what approvals you need.

• Contact research governance team:

If you are unsure of how to get ethical approval for your research, contact Research Governance Team at research-ethics@bristol.ac.uk. They will help you understand the research ethics review process.

• Get ethical approval:

You need to get ethical approval before you start collecting data. Research Ethics Committee cannot give you ethics approval for data already collected.

• Check if need more approvals:

Discuss with your supervisor or the research ethics team if you need to modify your research. 

• Upload ethical approval form:

Add confirmation of ethical approval to any assessed piece of work where an ethics review is required. This must be attached as an appendix.

If you are suspected of an ethical breach

If you are suspected of an ethical breach, you will be reported to the Research Ethics and Integrity Manager.

Any obvious ethical breach is unacceptable and will be penalised according to the University regulations or the regulations on research misconduct (PDF).

Before you submit your work

If you are suspected of breaching ethics in your research before you submit, you will be asked to explain what has happened.

After you submit your work

An examiner may raise a concern if an assessment uses primary data, collected without evidence of ethical approval.

Since you have already submitted your research, depending on how serious the breach is, we will either:

• report it and manage it according to the research misconduct regulations (PDF)
• consider it as academic misconduct (decided by an academic misconduct panel)
• consider it an ethical breach, but it can be managed by taking mitigating action

Get advice on ethical breaches

If you are being investigated for an ethical breach in your research, you can contact Bristol SU Academic Advice for free and impartial advice.