University of Essex
Research Integrity Annual Report
October 2025
1. Key institutional information for the statement
- Named senior member of staff to oversee research integrity: Professor Chris Greer
- Named member of staff who will act as a first point of contact for anyone wanting more information on matters of research integrity: Phineas Wenlock
2. Promoting high standards of research integrity and positive research culture.
2A. University research integrity frameworks
The University has a number of frameworks, policies, and contacts to support good research practice.
Policies and systems
1. The University’s policies and guidance relevant to research, its governance and its integrity are available from the University’s Research Integrity Research Governance web pages. University policies applicable to wider matters of institutional governance are available from the University’s Governance and Strategy web age.
2. The University’s Code of Good Research Practice (.pdf) provides a framework for the highest standards of personal conduct in research. These minimum standards are applicable to all researchers and those who support research in addition to their professional or funding body requirements and legislation.
3. The University has in place a Procedure for the Investigation of Allegations of Misconduct in Research (.pdf). The Procedure is based on the guidance produced by the UK Research Integrity Office.
4. The University has a dedicated Procedure for the Investigation of allegations of misconduct in Postgraduate Research (.pdf)
5. A dedicate University webpage provides guidance and resources for PGRs and supervisors in relation to research integrity and the process for investigation allegations of research misconduct pertaining to PGR student research.
6. The University’s Open Research Position Statement (.pdf) summarises the University’s commitment and approach to Open Research, explaining what it is and why it is important. It is informed by external frameworks, including YERUN Statement on Open Science and the Concordat on Open Research Data, and is underpinned by more detailed University policies on Open Access, Publications, Research Data Management (.pdf) and Research Integrity.
7. Other key policies and guidance are: Whistleblowing Policy and Procedure (Disclosure in the Public Interest) and Financial Regulations and Procedure Notes.
Communication and Engagement
8. Staff and research students are made aware of these policies and relevant processes when they join the University as part of their induction, and updates are communicated through Faculty Deans for Research and Departmental Directors of Research, as well as through general communication mechanisms, where relevant.
9.Specific aspects of research governance, good practice or other requirements are highlighted on a project-by-project basis as needed, so that they can be actively addressed in the research design or delivery, as appropriate.
10.Policies are also made available to staff through the University webpages, and are referenced in staff and student handbooks.
Culture, development and leadership
11. Building trust and confidence in our research through the provision of research integrity and skills training for researchers at all career stages, including implementation of the UK Concordat to Support Research Integrity is at the heart of the University’s Research Strategy.
12. 12.The University’s commitment and expectations on research integrity are evident in the Pro-Vice-Chancellor’s for Research statement.
13. At the University of Essex researchers are encouraged to report and publish full methods, results, and data through the promotion of open publishing platforms such as Octopus and Open Research Europe. Our institutional open access fund has been designed to enable Essex authors to publish as much research as possible open access.
14. The University has a Procedure for the Investigation of Allegations of Misconduct in Research (.pdf), with a senior member of staff being responsible for the Procedure. This serves to ensure institutional attention and that relevant actions can be taken. The Procedure provides some flexibility in the way in which an allegation might initially be raised, in order to allow staff, researchers, students and others to feel comfortable in reporting potential instances of misconduct. Whilst providing this flexibility, the Procedure requires a full written statement of the allegation to be received by the senior member of staff in order to ensure that the process is transparent, timely, robust and fair.
15. The University’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy (.pdf) supports the commitment to addressing under-representation where it exists, celebrating the diversity of our students and staff, nurturing communities of belonging in which all are accepted without exception, promoting inclusion, well-being, resilience and empowerment to enable everyone to reach their full potential as well as supporting and encouraging Academic Freedom of Speech within the law.
16. All members at the University of Essex have an important role in ensuring an inclusive environment for everyone, and the senior leaders at the university have a particular responsibility to support and nurture that environment. Our senior inclusion champions encourage greater consultation and communication with under-represented communities, and have concrete objectives to transform the words "equality, diversity and inclusion" into lasting and meaningful change.
17. The environment for research is created and sustained by the culture and behaviours of our researchers, those who support them, and the wider institution. Whilst seeking excellence and applicability in what we do we are also conscious of the need to enable and encourage good practice in research, as embodied in the Code of Good Research Practice. We seek to ensure that our research vision, strategy, operational plans, resource deployment and performance monitoring all take account of our commitment to research integrity and do not introduce inappropriate or perverse incentives.
18. Further information on the University’s research culture can be found on the researcher development webpages.
Monitoring and Reporting
19.Research involving animals, humans, their samples or data are reviewed by Ethics Officers and Ethics Sub-Committees. Decisions and numbers of applications processed per year plus data such as training completion are presented each year at the University-level Ethics Committee and then Senate.
20.The University keeps a track of concerns and allegations year to year, completion of online training modules and feedback on training activities (i.e. NEWCOMERS training programme).
21.One of the core activities of the Ethics Committee is to audit on a regular basis a sample of ethics applications to provide assurance that the assessment of ethics applications for research projects aligns with the University’s Guidelines for Ethical Approval of Research Involving Human Participant and to ensure that there is consistency in ethics reviewers working across the University. The findings of the audit are shared by the Chair of Ethics Committee with the Executive Deans, Faculty Deans (Research), Heads of Department and Directors of Research. The findings of the audit and expectations of the Ethics Committee are discussed by the Chairs of the Ethics Sub-Committees with the Departmental Ethics Officers. Based on the ethics audit findings, actions are approved by the Ethics Committee for the improvement of the University’s ethics review process.
2B. Changes and developments during the period under review
During the academic year 2024-2025, the University undertook a number of initiatives to promote good research practice.
Ethics Committee membership
22. There are three cross-faculty Ethics Sub-Committees at the University of Essex that are chaired by a Faculty Dean Research. In the academic year 2024-2025, the University appointed six new Ethics Officers who joined the Ethics Sub Committees. The Ethics Sub Committees continue operating efficiently to enhance the integrity of research undertaken at the University.
23. In order to ensure objectivity of review, the University’s Ethics Committee requires a number of External Members who have no recent, direct involvement with the University. In Autumn 2024, three suitable individuals were appointed in the role of External Member to cover vacancies in the Ethics Committee.
Ethics audit
24.In June 2025 the Ethics Committee reviewed and approved the proposed plan for auditing the ethical approval process for 2024-25, including guidelines for auditors.
The findings of the ethics audit exercise will be reported at the December 2025 Ethics Committee meeting.
Policies
25.In November 2024 University Council approved a new Trusted Research Policy (.pdf), for research projects at University of Essex that involve partnership or collaboration with external partners. The policy details how the University of Essex will fulfil its obligations in relation to what UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) refers to as Trusted Research, a term for protecting the UK’s intellectual property, sensitive research, people and infrastructure from potential theft, manipulation and exploitation, including as a result of interference by hostile actors.
26.In May 2025 the Open Research Position Statement (.pdf) which summarises our commitment and approach to Open Research was reviewed and approved by Senate.
27.In May 2025 the Due Diligence: Policy and Process (.pdf) was reviewed and approved by Senate. The purpose of this policy is to ensure that a sensible and proportionate approach is taken to both due diligence and trusted research principles for externally funded research projects at the University of Essex, and where this involves partnership or collaboration with external partners.
28. The University is committed to the principles of the 3Rs of Reduction, Refinement and Replacement. For every project involving animals the Ethics Committee is responsible for ensuring, as far as is reasonably practicable, that no alternative to the use of animals is possible, that the number of animals used is minimised, that unnecessary duplication is avoided, and that procedures and husbandry are refined to maximise welfare.
29.In June 2025, the University’s Ethics Committee reviewed the University Policy Statement on the Use of Animals in Research (.pdf)
30.In July 2025, the institutional policy for Author Rights Retention which empowers authors to control the dissemination of their research outputs was reviewed.
External Engagement
31. The University subscribes to the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) to access the support provided by the UKRIO and to demonstrate its commitment to the principle of integrity in research.
32. As part of our strategy to improve open science and research integrity, the University of Essex has become an institutional member of the UK Reproducibility Network (UKRN).
Training opportunities and guidance
33. Research integrity training resources are available on the University’s Moodle pages. For staff with research responsibilities, it is an Essential Training requirement to complete Module 1: Good Research Conduct and Module 2: Irresponsible research practices.
34.During the last year ethics and open research training was provided to doctoral students and early career researchers as part of the NEWCOMERS programme of training events.
35. As part of the same programme of events, training was delivered aiming to grow researchers' understanding of when their public engagement activities may cross over into research therefore requiring ethics review and to provide them with guidance for ethically conducting their public engagement activities.
36. The Ethics Sub-Committee members have continued to receive ethics review training. During 2024-25, six new Ethics Sub Committee members received their individual induction before they formally assumed their role as ethics reviewers.
Refresher ethics review training sessions were offered to existing Ethics Sub-Committee members in October 2024. The training was focused on key aspects of the ethical review process at the University and explored core ethics principles, e.g. informed consent; protection from harm; confidentiality and anonymity. The training also aimed to keep ethics reviewers up to date about the latest developments in University ethics guidelines and procedures. Three newly appointed External Members of the Ethics Committee were provided an ethics review induction before attending their first meeting in December 2024.
37. Long standing external Ethics Committee members and newly appointed external members underwent data protection training delivered by the University’s Information Assurance Manager.
38. The Ethics Committee welcomed Professor Nick Allum, who delivered a presentation on ethics structures and research integrity training drawing insight from research that was undertaken at Essex. Professor Allum’s research explored academic researchers’ beliefs and values about ethics committees and policies on research integrity and training. The research also examined the benefits of research integrity and what motivates researchers to comply with such procedures and what would encourage researchers to participate in training.
39. The Ethics Committee reviewed and approved revisions to the Research data and social media – some general principles (.pdf) guidance to provide: clearer guidance about when online postings might be considered public; explicit parameters of when research involving social media data collection and particularly data harvested from open and public forums would be classified as low risk; clarifications as to when consent would be required, when consent would not be needed and when consent is not practical for the collection of social media data.
40. In January 2025, the University’s Ethical Public Engagement Tool and Guidance (.pdf) was published. The Ethical Public Engagement Tool and Guidance, provides an assessment tool to help researchers to determine if their activity involving engagement with members of the public incorporates research and therefore requires ethics review, and offers guidelines to support researchers to work towards ethically sound public engagement practice in their research work, either their planned activities involving public contributors require ethics review or not.
41. The Ethics Committee reviewed and approved the following revisions in the Guidelines for Ethical Approval of Research Involving Human Participants: definition as to what the use of previously collected data in research means; clarification as to when the use of previously collected data in research is exempted from the ethics review requirement; explanation that ethical review may be needed if using previously collected data in research raises additional ethical considerations; description of key ethical issues that researchers should consider when using previously collected data in research.
Open research
42.The University of Essex collaborated with the University of Liverpool, the Liverpool John Moores University and Edge Hill University for Open Research Week 2025. The week included sessions such as “Open Qualitative Research: Challenges, Limitations and Possibilities”, “Recognising and Rewarding Open Research” and “Measuring, Monitoring and Evaluating Open Research”.
2C. Reflections on progress, and plans for future developments
43. During the Academic Year 25/26 the University intends to review its Code of Good Research Practice and Procedure for the Investigation of Allegations of Misconduct in Research in light of the updated UK Research Integrity Office’s Code of Practice of Research, which aligns with 2025 Concordat to Support Research Integrity. A research integrity review group will be established, drawn from academic and professional services colleagues to review the Code of Good Research Practice and Procedure for the Investigation of Allegations of Research Misconduct. The group will report to Research Committee with updated documents for discussion and approval.
44. Discussions with the Faculty Deans of Research will be initiated, as chairs of the three Faculty Research Committees, to ask for their assistance in developing at faculty level an environment embodying research integrity and ensuring that research integrity is firmly embedded in the University’s ethos and culture. In particular the faculty research committees will be asked to ensure good take up of research integrity training across our academic departments, to make sure that information on all aspects of research integrity is promoted, and to involve the faculties and departments in the development and adoption of Research Integrity policy and good practice.
45. The ethics application process and form will continue to be reviewed subject to refinements identified by ethics reviewers and improvements identified through use. Other work will likely include reviewing policies, refreshing training, reviewing webpages, and exploring options for showcasing good practice.
3. Addressing research misconduct
3A. Statement on processes that the University has in place for dealing with allegations of misconduct
46. The University has in place a Procedure for the Investigation of Allegations of Misconduct in Research The Procedure is based on the guidance produced
by the UK Research Integrity Office. The University has a dedicated Procedure for the Investigation of allegations of misconduct in Postgraduate Research
47. A dedicate University webpage provides guidance and resources for PGRs and supervisors in relation to research integrity and the process for investigation allegations of research misconduct pertaining to PGR student research.
48. The University recognises that concerns relating to research integrity can be complex, challenging and highly sensitive; and can impact upon the emotional and mental wellbeing of those involved. Any person wishing to raise concerns about the integrity of research being conducted under the auspices of the University can do so in confidence by emailing misconduct@essex.ac.uk. The Named Person for allegations of research misconduct is the Registrar and Secretary. Advice in relation to research policies, integrity and research misconduct is available from the Head of Research Governance and Planning (pwenlock@essex.ac.uk).
49.The University commits to engage constructively with other relevant organisations in their investigation of an allegation of research misconduct, and to alert other relevant organisations to potential cases of research misconduct of which it becomes aware.
3B. Information on investigations of allegations of research misconduct
50. During the year 2024-25, three allegations of research misconduct were received. The progress of this is shown in the table below.
| |
22/23 |
23/24 |
24/25 |
| Total number received; of which: |
2 |
3 |
3 |
| Currently under initial consideration |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Referred to a different policy / process after initial
Consideration |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Dismissed as not being research misconduct |
0 |
0 |
2 |
| Currently under Preliminary Investigation |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Addressed through education and training after
the Preliminary Investigation |
0 |
1 |
0 |
Referred to a different policy / process after the
Preliminary Investigation |
0 |
1 |
0 |
| Dismissed after the Preliminary Investigation |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Currently under Formal Investigation |
1 |
0 |
0 |
| Completed the Formal Investigation |
1 |
1 |
1 |
51. In 2024-25, one formal investigation was completed and upheld. The table below provides data for this year and the preceding two years.
|
Number of formal investigations
completed
(academic years*)
|
Number of allegations upheld - in full or in part (academic years*) |
|
|
22/23 |
23/24 |
21/22 |
22/23 |
23/24 |
24/25 |
| Fabrication |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Falsification |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Plagiarism |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Misrepresentation |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Breach of duty of Care |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Improper dealing with allegations of
misconduct |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Other breach of ethical approval |
1 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
| Details of any allegations upheld in part |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
** |
*** |
| Total |
1 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
*Academic year – 1 August to 31 July.
** The allegation relating to conducting and analysing research ahead of obtaining ethical approval was disproved and dismissed.
The allegation that appendices submitted with the coursework report were not suitably redacted and/or anonymised was upheld
***The researcher was a Professional Doctorate Student, and the breach related to undertaking research via a method not included in their ethical approval for a taught piece of coursework (not the research thesis). Mitigating circumstances were presented and accepted. Since it applied to a taught module coursework, not the research thesis, in accordance with the ‘Procedure for the Investigation of allegations of Misconduct in Postgraduate Research’, the penalty applied was drawn from the Academic Offences Procedure. The penalty applied was Penalty 3a: Resubmit unit of assessment with minor amendments only, as determined by the Adjudicator (such as correct referencing, paraphrasing or striking out) for a capped mark. They were also required to attend online Research Integrity training.
Lessons from Formal Investigations of Allegations of Research Misconduct
52. The University seeks to learn from any and all parts of the process for handling allegations of misconduct. We also, where relevant, draw on public information of the experience of other institutions and on activities or events where research integrity is discussed.
53. Over the past years lessons learnt from formal investigations have resulted in improved tracking of final reports, reporting of adverse events and governance control of activities undertaken with Health Research Authority and NHS Research Ethics Committee approval.
54. The Procedure for the Investigation of Allegations of Misconduct in Research will continue to be reviewed in light of the UKRIO updated procedure, taking into account lessons learned and ensuring appropriate communication between relevant parts of the University when allegations of research misconduct are received and investigated.
55. Communications with staff and students in relation to requirements have been improved and the training provided to departmental Ethics Officers, staff and students has been expanded.
