Cape Peninsula University of Technology

Research Integrity

Research integrity is the responsibility of everyone affiliated with CPUT, internally or externally. To facilitate, safeguard and promote such an environment at CPUT, the Unit of Research Integrity was developed. Our vision at URI is to create and promote ethos and culture of research ethics, integrity and responsible research conduct at CPUT, where all research is planned, proposed, performed, reported, taught and reviewed.

Our function includes:

• Facilitate research ethics and integrity as well as good research practices by providing resources and training to all researchers at CPUT.
• Monitoring compliance (to institutional policies, rules and regulations as well as local, national and international laws including professional standards), thereby ensuring safe and ethical research.
• Developing and implementing policies and procedures related to the welfare and protection of research subjects (humans and animals) and the environment
• Applying suitable policies and procedures/guidelines that are fair, transparent and vigorous, to deal with issues and allegations of research misconduct.
• Monitoring and evaluation of research ethics activities at CPUT, including research conducted by external researchers or staff members registered at other universities, but who are making use of CPUT as a research site.

CPUT Faculty Research Ethics Committees

The Cape Peninsula University of Technology has four structures that oversee and govern research ethics, these include the Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research, Technology, Information and Partnerships (DVC: RTIP); Research Directorate (RD, including a Unit of Research Integrity, URI); the Senate Research Ethics committee (SREC, as a subcommittee reporting to Senate);  faculty-based ethics committee (Health and Wellness, Business and Management Sciences, Applied Sciences, Engineering and the Built Environment, Informatics and Design and Education) and an Animal Ethics Committee.

CPUT Site permission

CPUT site permission (or gatekeeper permission) refers to the authorisation of researchers by a representative of the institution, to conduct research at CPUT.

The Unit of Research Integrity is responsible for the management and administration of the process of CPUT site permission. All applications for CPUT site permission should be submitted to Dr Hester Burger, email: burgerh@cput.ac.za, and Ms Elizabeth Gemba, email Gembae@cput.ac.za

CPUT site permission is required by:

Applicants external to CPUT

1 SOP for CPUT Site Permission External Applicants September 2022

1. Researchers registered as a student and/or employed at an Institution/Entity outside of CPUT wanting to conduct research at CPUT.

CPUT staff, students, affiliates, etc.

2 SOP for CPUT Site Permission Internal Applicants September 2022

2. CPUT student/s who want to conduct research at a specific CPUT entity (faculty/ department/ unit/ office/ groups/ individuals) outside of the Faculty in which they are registered.
3. CPUT staff who want to conduct research at a specific CPUT entity (faculty/ department /unit /office /groups /individuals) outside of the CPUT entity they are affiliated with.
4. CPUT staff that is registered as a student at academic institutions external to CPUT, wanting to conduct research at CPUT.

CPUT institutional planning surveys

3 SOP for CPUT Site Permission Institutional Planning September 2022

5. CPUT Institutional planning surveys that include human participants, such as all institutional-wide surveys conducted by the CPUT Institutional Planning Directorate, where the findings will be used for planning, policy, reporting, monitoring, evaluation, and quality assurance.

For permits and agreements relevant to specific research undertakings kindly contact URI

• Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) for Human Biological Material and Associated Data
• Bioprospecting (two phases)

4 Bioprospecting Regulatory Framework Guideline

1. Discovery Phase: early-stage research involving biodiversity.
2. Commercialisation Phase: (registration of IP rights, clinical trials, market research, etc).
3. For more information, click here.

Resources and information:

Ethics code for an indigenous group in Africa https://www.globalcodeofconduct.org/affiliated-codes/

Statement on Ethical Research and Scholarly Publishing Practices (ASSAf, CHE, DHET, DST, NRF and USAf)

NRF Statement on Predatory and Deceptive Publishers

Fostering Integrity in Research. https://www.aiche.org/sites/default/files/docs/topics/report.pdf

Belmont Report 

The Singapore Statement on Research Integrity. http://www.singaporestatement.org/statement.html http://www.singaporestatement.org/downloads/singpore%20statement_A4size.pdf

The Montreal Statement on Research Integrity in Cross-Boundary Research Collaborations.

http://www.researchintegrity.org/Statements/Montreal%20Statement%20English.pdf

Department of Health, Ethics in Health Research Guidelines, 2015

National Health Research Ethics Council, http://nhrec.health.gov.za/

Training

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Extramural Research Web-based training course “Protecting Human Research Participants". https://phrp.nihtraining.com/users/login.php

Training and Resources in Research Ethics Evaluation (TRREE). https://elearning.trree.org/

Staff