Conduct a study

Before you apply please familiarise yourself with the Behavioural Science Lab policy document.

Please take care to read the policy as there are some restrictions to which your study might be subject to. Some examples include:

• No use of deception
• Respecting minimum payment guidelines
• Respecting scheduling and lab use procedures
• Ensuring a researcher is present during data collection 

Users from outside of the university community will need to agree a contract with the laboratory. This contract will formalise your agreed usage and cost, whilst providing you with reassurance of the excellent level of service and value for money you can expect to receive from Behavioural Science Lab.

Your contract will discuss the following:

• Your agreed payment for laboratory hire
• Your access to Laboratory Assistants
• Your participant payments

Currently our external charge-out rate for the use of Behavioural Science Lab for academic studies is £165 per hour.

In order to discuss your contract please contact the Laboratory Manager.

Once you have read our laboratory policies and if applicable agreed a contract, you are now ready to submit your application through our online form. The form takes less than 10 minutes to complete and gives us the important details we need to set up your study.

Please also take a moment to review our lab calendar in order to gain an oversight of lab availability. Once your application has been approved, timings will need to be discussed and confirmed with the Laboratory Manager.

All studies conducted in Behavioural Science Lab must have received ethical approval. Please note that all bookings on the lab calendar are tentative until ethical approval for your project is received.

Essex staff:

You will need to receive ethical approval and consent from your department research coordinator, the Faculty ethics committee, or the University of Essex ethics committee. The Research and Enterprise Office (REO) provides resources for the ethical approval processes, including templates for participant information sheets and consent forms.

External users:

You will need to receive approval and consent through the ethics committee of your home institution.

You are welcome to use resources at the University of Essex for the ethical approval processes, including templates for participant information sheets and consent forms. If you'd like to use a different form, please discuss it with our Laboratory Manager during the preparation for your study.

Once your application has been reviewed by the Laboratory Manager and provisionally approved, you will receive an invitation from us to join Basecamp and upload your supporting documentation.

Basecamp is a project management software which we will use throughout the course of your study to help run your project as efficiently and as smoothly as possible.

What will I need?

To fully approve your study application, you will need to upload (bulleted list) your ethical approval letter; approved participant information and consent text; a brief (1-2 page) study protocol."