Research is essential for improving our health and wellbeing and the care we receive.
We want to make sure that research carried out within or on behalf of social care and public health is good quality and protects the dignity, safety, rights, and wellbeing of everyone involved. Our research governance process helps us to do this.
If you, or someone who has contacted you, would like to carry out research involving social care and public health, it will need to have research governance approval before going ahead.
Applying for research governance approval
You should apply for approval if your research involves collecting information from or about the people who use our services, their carers or relatives, our staff and stakeholders. This includes access to existing information held by our social care and public health teams.
Our approval process covers research carried out by people who are employed by another organisation, research collaborations with external organisations, and students wishing to undertake research for educational purposes, including our employees.
If your research proposal has already been approved by another organisation, you will still need to apply to us.
Where to apply for research governance approval
If your research involves children's services, please contact the performance, quality and participation team using the details that follow.
If your research involves adult social care and public health, you will need to apply to our research governance panel which works within the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research.
How to apply for Research Governance Panel approval
Please contact the Public Health Knowledge and Intelligence Team using the details that follow. They will send you guidance notes and an application form which you will need to complete before starting your research.
The Health Research Authority Decision Tool and Defining Research Table can help you work out whether or not your study is research, as defined by the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research.
Email your application form using the details that follow. Remember to include copies of all the supporting documents listed in the application form checklist.
What happens next
The panel will first consider whether we can support the research and check that appropriate ethical and legal requirements are in place. You may be asked to provide additional information or evidence before your application proceeds.
If we can support the research, the panel will review your application and recommend that it is either approved, provisionally approved subject to conditions, or declined.
Approved research will be recorded on our internal research governance register. If your application is declined, we'll explain why, and the research must not go ahead.
If your research is approved, it is expected that you will follow the principles of the UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research throughout. If changes are made to the research after approval has been given, you must let us know as soon as possible.
Once your research is completed, we request that you send us a copy of all publications for information and sharing.
Research governance contacts
Research involving adult social care and public health
Public health knowledge and intelligence team, email: kit@derbyshire.gov.uk
Research involving children's services
Performance, quality and participation, email: david.cohen@derbyshire.gov.uk