Getting permission to study living people

Feb. 27 workshop on ethical research conduct and permission process for human subject research

Graduate students in the College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences conduct a wide variety of studies that require them to collect data on real people. For example:

• a Kinesiology PhD candidate might need to test the motor function of subjects to develop new techniques for aiding in recovery from traumatic accidents
• a sociology master’s student might need to do a questionnaire to gain information on the significance of marriage rituals in people’s lives
• a Psychology PhD student might conduct clinical research with children in the Sleep and Anxiety Center for Kids here on campus.

As our graduate students conduct cutting-edge research here in the College, they are also being trained in doing that research ethically and according to the highest standards.

Kirstin Rochford, the new Director for Research Compliance at UH, will host a workshop on ethical research conduct and the permission process for human subject research on Monday, February 27, from 12-1 p.m. in Heyne Building Room 135.

All research projects that seek to work with human subjects must go through a rigorous proposal review process to ensure that the research project will fully protect the people being studied.

This workshop is a crucial step for the College’s graduate students to get the training needed both to ethically conduct human-subject research and negotiate the process to gain permission to work with people in their research.