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Research

Ethics and policies

Queen Mary is committed to producing and promoting high-quality research. Our research policies ensure that research and innovation is effectively fostered, conducted and disseminated to the highest standards of integrity.

Policy overview

You will find a full set of quick links to all of the University’s policies, including those related to research, in the Policy zone.

Queen Mary’s Strategy 2030 contains policies on research and other university activities; and you can also examine the Barts Health NHS trust research policy [PDF 555KB].

The senior member of staff with leadership oversight for research integrity is the Vice-Principal (Research), Professor Andrew Livingston.

 

Joint Research Management Office (JRMO)

The JRMO facilitates and enables research, supporting academics and clinicians. They have a set of policies covering:

  • standards for research
  • assuring research quality
  • the management of research information
  • minimising risk in research and development activities
  • financial probity
  • human resource issues.

Integrity and ethics

The Ethics of Research Committee oversees any ethical issues arising in connection with research. The committee ensures that research is always conducted with full awareness of ethical issues, and necessary precautions and actions are taken to preserve high ethical standards.

Queen Mary has adopted the commitments of the UUK Concordat to Support Research Integrity.

For further information, please read:

The Audit and Risk Committee is responsible for reviewing the annual report from the Vice-Principal (Research) on research integrity and research misconduct.

For enquiries about these procedures or policies, or about potential cases of research misconduct, please contact:

Vice-Principal (Research)
Professor Andrew Livingston
a.livingston@qmul.ac.uk

Trusted Research and Export Control 

As a global university, Queen Mary benefits from international research collaborations, which bring significant economic and social benefits and intellectual talent to our local community and the UK.  It is the responsibility of both the University and individual researchers to fulfil research security compliance requirements so we can continue to protect Queen Mary’s reputation and values, staff and students, research activities, infrastructure and partnerships.

The Queen Mary Trusted Research and Compliance Board is responsible for monitoring Queen Mary's performance in trusted research with international partners and ensuring regulatory compliance relating to research security. 

The research security team help assess partnership risks within the global context, provide advice on individual cases in compliance with Export Controls legislations and the NSI Act, and develop training and guidance for the researchers. For enquiries about these policies or procedures please contact the team at vp-trustedresearch@qmul.ac.uk. 

For further information, please see: 

Open access

Queen Mary is committed to the principle of open access publication of research. We encourage and help researchers disseminate their research through recognised and high-impact routes. Our current Open Access Guidance gives more information, as well as contact details for the Repository and Research Information Team.

Research data management and access

We are committed to the principle of open access to research data – the materials underlying research results. However, there are necessary constraints on this imposed by legal, ethical or funder requirements, as detailed in our Research Data Access and Management Policy [PDF 39KB].

Career development of researchers

Our Researcher Development team and the Doctoral College support career development for research students and staff.

Queen Mary is committed to the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers, which sets out three clear principles that cover:

  • environment and culture
  • employment
  • professional and career development.

The principles are underpinned by obligations for the four key stakeholder groups:

  • funders
  • institutions
  • researchers
  • managers of researchers.

Queen Mary holds the European Commission’s HR Excellence in Research Award in recognition of our continued commitment to the development of our researchers.

Equality and diversity

Queen Mary has an active and long-standing commitment to equality and diversity principles in all aspects of its work. We have a full set of policies with regard to fostering equality of opportunity.

Our human resources site has more information on our policies with regard to the Protected Characteristics.

The University holds a Silver Athena Swan Award for excellence in our commitment to gender equality and each School and Institute is committed to obtaining individual awards.

We are a signatory of the Race Equality Charter Mark (REC) and a partner in the B-MEntor scheme for black and ethnic minority academics.

Involvement of animals in research

Queen Mary is committed to the highest ethical, humane and welfare standards relating to the use of animals in research. Work in this area is overseen by our Animal Welfare and Ethical Review Body. More information on our policies can be found on our Animal Research pages.

Find out more

Our research strategy

Learn more about the strategy that underpins our research

How we support our researchers

Learn more about how we support our research students and staff

Research Excellence Framework (REF)

Learn more about our REF performance

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