These pages provide access to the University of Pretoria’s research policies, guides and related documents.

The Research@UP Manual will:

help researchers comply with the University's policies, regulations and procedures; and any legislation, regulations or codes that may apply to research activities.

Once it is available, the Manual can be accessed here.

The following policies are important for researchers:

• The Research Policy and Research Compliance Regulation: These rules apply to all research. It contains information about ethical research, respecting intellectual property rights, research contracts, securing research data and publishing research data and research findings.
• The Intellectual Property Policy and the Intellectual Property Compliance Regulation: These rules apply to all intellectual property created during the course of research (including research data).
• The Survey Policy: These rules apply to all surveys conducted with University staff, students, alumni or other stakeholders.
• The Information Security Management Policy: These rules apply to all information, including research data and intellectual property.
• The Protection of Personal Information (Privacy) Policy: These rules apply to identifiable personal information of individuals and organisations. It is particularly relevant to research involving human participants. However, it will also apply when organisations’ personal information is selected or to any personal information of individuals (regardless of whether they are ‘participants’ or not).
• ASSAf Code of Conduct for Research.

Research Proposals & Research Data Management Plans

The University is developing a template and checklist for research proposals. It is not compulsory to use this template and checklist, but your research proposal must meet the underlying requirements...Read more

Getting Ethics Approval

The Research@UP Manual will set out when ethics approval is required. Note that certain types of research may need approval from multiple ethics committees...Read more

Research Involving Animals

All research or training (including undergraduate and post-graduate modules) using animals or animal-derived samples (even if stored) must attain approval from the Animal Ethics Committee (AEC)...Read more

Research Involving Personal Information

If your research involves collecting personal information of individuals or organisations there are a couple of additional requirements that you must keep in mind...Read more

Survey Approval

All surveys of University staff, students, alumni and other University Stakeholders must be approved by the Survey Coordinating Committee. This requirement is part of the University’s...Read more

UP Archives

See the UP Archives website for more information and forms...Read more

Submitting Your Thesis

Submitting your thesis or dissertation is an important part of many research projects. The Library has created an extremely useful guideline on submitting your thesis which you can access...Read more

Intellectual Property Rights

A lot of intellectual property is created during the course of research. The University is publicly funded, which means that it is subject to the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act 51 of 2008 (the IPR Act)...Read more

Research Contracts

The University must conclude a research contract with the outside organisation or outside researchers before the research can commence. The contract must be approved by the Innovation and Contracts Management Office, the Technology Transfer Office and the relevant head of department or dean...Read more