The UP Senate has approved three new policies that have significant implications for research at the University:

• The Research Policy and Research Compliance Regulations: These documents ensure that researchers conduct research responsibly and ethically, that the rights of research participants are protected, that we manage and preserve research data while still ensuring open access, and that researchers meet all of their legal obligations.  
• The Intellectual Property Policy and IP Compliance Regulations: When research is conducted using public funds, the University has a legal obligation to ensure that the Intellectual Property (IP) that is created is protected. This policy sets out who owns the IP and when (and how) researchers must notify the University if valuable new IP will be created. 
• The Survey Policy: Any survey involving UP students, staff or other stakeholders must be approved by the Survey Coordinating Committee to ensure that our stakeholders are not over-surveyed and that researchers meet all of their legal obligations. 

Please ensure that you familiarize yourself with these policies and regulations and that you make researchers under your supervision aware of them. If you have any questions, please feel free to send them to [email protected] or you can attend our webinar “Responsible Conduct of Research” on 29 March 2023. The webinar invite will be sent out soon.

In the coming weeks and months, the University will be making further resources, guidelines, e-Learning, and other training opportunities available to ensure that researchers are empowered to do responsible research. 

The latest versions of these policies are also available on the UP Staff portal under the Policies menu item ->Institutional Policies -> Research policies.