EBIT ethics committee details

Please direct all correspondence to the EBIT Ethics Office and not to any members of the Ethics Committee.

Chair: Prof Alice Chan. For all queries, please contact the EBIT Ethics Office.

Members: committee members include UP academic personnel from each of the schools in EBIT.

Secretariat (EBIT Ethics Office): Ms Andani Ramulongo ([email protected]). 

Note: as a practical arrangement, please contact the EBIT Ethics Office via emails only and include your application Protocol Number in your email subject line.

Application for ethics clearance of a research project

1. Who needs to apply for ethics clearance?

By UP regulation (see below), ALL studies (undergraduate, postgraduate, or studies by personnel) that include humans or animals are subject to ethics clearance before data gathering may commence. An ethics application is required for the following situations:

1.1  Humans (informants and/or subjects) are included as participants in studies. Humans may be informants (e.g. when you ask somebody's opinion, or a survey, questionnaire or interview is used, etc.), or they may be subjects (i.e. where they are the object of study, e.g. when you measure reaction time or observe people or ask people to perform tasks, etc.). In both of these types of cases where humans are included as participants in the studies. Make sure that Section 11 on the ethics application form is correctly ticked as an YES and then fill in the rest of the fields. 

1.2 Ethics clearance is required if secondary data derived from humans, including social media data or other identifiable sources, are used in a study. 

1.3 Research that involves the reuse (secondary use) of research data that contains the personal information of research participants, members of the public, or other individuals or organisations.

1.4 Where UP related data (e.g. study guides, academic records) are to be used, you are also required to apply for ethics clearance. See more details below, under section 2, in red.

1.5 Where animals are included in studies, you are also required to apply for ethics clearance. 

If you submit an application that does not apply to any of the above, it will be cancelled by the REC.

2. How to apply for ethics clearance

If you are not a member of UP personnel or student (e.g. a researcher/student from another university or external organisations) and your research requires UP staff and/or students as informants and/or UP related data (e.g. academic records), please contact the UP Survey Coordinating Committee at: [email protected] (Ms Carlien Nell) - who will inform you the process and documents are required for the application at the institutional (UP) level.

If you are not a member of EBIT personnel or a student (i.e. from another Faculty), please consult first with your home faculty regarding the ethics application process. All applicants should apply at the home faculty first, then the administrator may transfer to the relevant faculty if necessary.

When applying within EBIT (i.e. EBIT personnel and students), the process to apply for ethics clearance is straightforward. Applications and all accompanying documents must be submitted electronically via the People Soft Ethics Application and Approval System (the online ethics system). Log into the UP Portal, and then click on the Research Grants & Ethics, followed by the Ethics Application and Approval link.

Once you have created a new application online, you are required to complete the details of the applicant as well as the application form online. Complete this along with other forms or documents that may be required (this will become clear when you complete the application form online). When ready, submit all the forms and documents online. You can always save your application (every new application will have a specific Protocol Number) and then later search for your application using the Protocol Number (under Preapproval Submissions, then to Find an Existing Value, search for your Protocol Number). Once all the documents are ready, submit the application. From here onwards, the application is first routed by the system to the supervisor (if the applicant is a student), then to the HoD before it reaches the EBIT ethics office. This may take a long time depending on each department's internal process. It is highly recommended that if the applicant is a student, that s/he input the supervisor's personnel number and email correctly. The correct department should be chosen for all applications, in order to reach the correct HoD. 

Note the following:

Note 1: Applications can only be submitted online, and not as paper copy or via email.

Note 2: You will be saving yourself time by making sure that the application is complete and correctly completed. Incomplete or incorrectly completed applications will result in delays.

Note 3: All correspondence between the applicant and the EBIT Ethics Office takes place via e-mail. Feedback on applications is given via the online ethics system.

Note 4: You can use this bot based on the UP Guideline of ethics if you have any questions and need help:

Additional approval process:

There is a two-step process for certain categories of applications. This would typically be the case for any work that is health or animal-related. Applications should always be submitted to the home faculty ethics committee first. Please note, however, that there may be specific cases in which the EBIT Ethics Committee will transfer your application directly to the Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee (FHSREC) or Faculty of Veterinary Science (FVSREC). This is done automatically by the portal system, you don't need to submit a new application to another faculty. 

For example, all health-related projects or studies, you need apply to EBIT first if you are a student or member of personnel of this faculty (EBIT). The EBIT Ethics Committee can grant preliminary approval, and this should then be used to transfer your application by the system to the Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee (FHSREC) via the online ethics system. The FHSREC may require corrections or modifications, and they will grant final approval (or endorse an EBIT health-related study) where appropriate.

IMPORTANT NOTE: when involving UP students/staff/data:
EBIT applicants whose research involves UP staff, students, alumni, or any other UP stakeholders (e.g., prospective students, donors, employers, etc.) as participants (through surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments), as well as those using UP-related information or data (e.g. study guides, students academic records, assignments, etc), must first apply to EBIT REC (home faculty).

In conjunction with your application to EBIT REC, you must also apply to the Institutional Survey Committee by contacting Ms. Carlien Nell at [email protected]. You will need to download the following documents as part of the application to the Institutional Survey Committee:

3. Code of Ethics for Research

The application form must be completed only after you have familiarised yourself with the University's policies. By submitting an application, you declare that you know and understand the content of these documents. 

• READ THIS FIRST: Research@UP Manual
• Download Research Compliance Regulation
• Download Research Policy
• Download Survey Policy
• Download Data Management Policy

4. Aspects to consider when preparing an application

4.1 If you are a student, ensure that you provide the details of your study leader under Research Team in the online application form. Incorrect personnel number and email address will result in your application routed by the system to the wrong person. You can ask in advance for your supervisor's Personnel Number in order to capture the correct information on the system under Research Team. It is advised that you email your supervisor immediately after you have submitted online for his/her attention.

4.2 Ensure that all documents use correct grammar and spelling.

4.3 Note that the ethics committee considers whether the research to be conducted complies with ethical guidelines, not whether the research or research methodology is correct or appropriate. However, a concise description of the methodology with relevant ethical aspects is required (under Materials and methods in the online application form). 

4.4 If you are a student, your research proposal must be approved by the departmental research committee (of the department where the research originates), or by the study leader before requesting clearance from the ethics committee. A formal letter or an email correspondence (in English) can be submitted in PDF. After you have submitted your application the system will send a notification to your study leader who will need to provide his/her recommendation for your application to proceed further to the EBIT REC for review. 

4.5 All research within the faculty that may be classified as "medically-related research" will be considered by the EBIT Ethics Committee first, and must then be submitted to the Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee with EBIT's recommendation. As examples, this would include any work carried out in hospitals, or any work in which devices are attached to people (e.g. ECG monitor, blood pressure monitor). 

4.6 As a general rule, surveys or questionnaires that request personal details of respondents will not be approved (i.e. details like name, address, telephone number, ID number, student number, health status, gender, income, number of people in a household). If you require any of these from respondents in a survey, you should expect questions from the ethics committee which will delay the process. To avoid delays, decide whether you actually need to know these. If yes, motivate explicitly and clearly in your application (provide a motivation letter as an additional document with strong theoretical justification and relate clearly to the research objective).

4.7 Finally, please ensure that your email address as given on the application form is correct.

5. Submission checklist

You need to submit the following documents online. All documents submitted need to be in PDF only. Incomplete or incorrect submissions will result in your application being delayed for at least one application round (approximately 5 weeks).

5.1 Application form for ethics clearance by the ethics committee. This should be completed online by creating an ethics clearance application on the portal. 

5.2 Questionnaire, survey or interview questions, where applicable for the particular study. If unstructured interviews are to be conducted, you still need to provide the list of questions to be used. This should be submitted online as a PDF file.

5.3 Informed consent form, to be completed by research participants (therefore not yet signed by the research participants when you are preparing for the ethics clearance application), before the research study commences. After ethics clearance has been obtained and forms are signed before data is collected, these signed forms should be kept on record by the researcher for 5 years.

(i) Download the

Please adapt this to be specific for your study (very important).

(ii) The title of the research study and your name need to appear on the informed consent form.

(iii) The informed consent form should be informative, and, among others, explain the risks to the participant.

(iv) If voice recordings are to be used, the informed consent form needs to explicitly request permission for this.

(v) Personal information may not be voice-recorded.

(vi) Video recordings are generally not allowed.

(vii) Online questionnaires are allowed, but this also requires informed consent. The usual approach is to prohibit the participant from continuing to the questionnaire until explicit informed consent is provided. Note that you will still need validated records of informed consent. Typically, a cover letter for an online questionnaire is required. Download

Your example of the informed consent form should be submitted online as a PDF file.

5.4 Company permission letter, where applicable. When your research is conducted at an institution or company (e.g. a bank, a government department, or a retail company), you need to submit a permission letter from that entity (signed by the owner, CEO, director or other authorized person) that allows you to perform a research study there. This should be submitted as a PDF file. An email thread WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. Download an example of 

5.5 For any studies in which UP students or UP personnel within EBIT are respondents or participants, you need to prepare a motivational letter which accompanies your application as an additional document (as a PDF file) online with the file name as: Motivation for involving UP students/personnel.

The body of the letter should explain briefly

(i) what your research is about, and

(ii) why UP students or UP personnel from EBIT need to be included.

(iii) how data will be collected from them and the duration of the data collection period.

(iv) ask permission to include either UP students, or UP personnel, or both in your study.

NOTE the following if UP Staff or UP Students are participants in your research:

• Under section 7 (Research Environment) on the application form, choose "University of Pretoria".
• Under section 11 (Participants) on the application form, choose either "UP Staff" or "UP Students". 

6. Submission

The submission deadlines are listed below.

Strictly adhere to the submission deadlines, as submissions that are late for the current cycle will be considered in the next cycle, without exception. This means these applications will be delayed for five weeks or more.

Submissions made by the staff will be routed by the system to the HoD before they reach the EBIT Office. Submissions made by students will first be routed to the Supervisors for checking. Please make sure that you have entered your supervisor's personnel number and email address correctly. Once you have submitted, follow up with your supervisor. Once the supervisor has checked and set it for submission, it will then be routed to the HoD before it reaches for EBIT Office. The submission deadline in the table below refers to the date that the application reaches to the EBIT Office, not the date that you submitted online. 

The "review completion by" date is the expected completion date of the review process for a particular cycle of applications. Allow a few days after this for feedback. Feedback may be "approved", "conditionally approved", "rejected", or "modifications required". If the latter, please submit these as soon as possible after receiving feedback to be in time for the next round.

NOTE: Ethics submissions or revisions received after 23 October 2026 will only be considered in the next round (deadline 15 January 2027; completion 19 February 2027). 

7. Feedback and revisions

If your submitted application reaches the EBIT Office on time, you will wait about 5 weeks for feedback (after the next completion date). If a modification is required, this should be submitted before the next submission deadline.

The revised/improved application will then be considered in the next round of applications. For example, if your submission reaches the EBIT Office before 6 March (Round 2), your review falls under the same round of review and will receive feedback before 10 April. If your submission reaches the EBIT Office after 6 March, then the review falls under the next round (Round 3) and will only be reviewed before 29 May (Round 3). 

Therefore:

• Please ensure that your application is complete and correct - if not, it may take several additional weeks to be approved. Consult with your Supervisor or the Department's ethics representative.
• Leave enough time between the application and the planned commencement of the research. Apart from the possibility that a revision may be required, some additional weeks will need to be allowed where applications are referred to another committee (e.g., Health Sciences for any health-related project),

Upon approval, notification will be sent to the applicant via the online system.

8. Important note on conducting research before clearance is obtained

By regulation, applicants may not commence research before receiving ethics committee clearance.

Conducting research that requires ethics committee clearance without approval is a serious offence and may result in disciplinary action. When research is conducted without the necessary clearance, all data gathered will be null and void and will not be allowed as part of the requirements of a degree (e.g., master's dissertation or PhD thesis) or research publication. This is strictly enforced. No ethics clearance will be given ex post facto.