Research permit

Persons outside the University of Turku must request for a research permit whenever the working time of the Turku University staff is used, for example, for research interviews or surveys carried out during working hours, or for the collection of other research materials, or an intervention is made in a teaching situation.  Permit is also required if information from the University’s registers or databases is requested in the research, or the research design requires ethical review. Research involving students also requires a research permit when any of the above conditions is met.

A research permit is required from the staff and students of the University of Turku, if information from the University’s registers of databases is requested in the research, or if the research design requires ethical review.

If your research concerns the entire staff or students of the University, the research permit is granted by the rector. If your research concerns a faculty, a department or a unit, permission is granted by the dean of the faculty. If your research concerns the Turku University Hospital, the permit is applied from the hospital. You can get further instructions on the research permit required by the hospital from the Turku Clinical Research Centre.

In addition to the centrally granted research permits, faculties and units may have their own practices for granting research permissions for studies that do not require a centralized research permit. Also in these cases, the researcher must ensure that the research participants are informed carefully, their informed consent is obtained, and the conditions related to data protection are taken into account.

Please note that the University of Turku may only grant a research permit for conducting research. The decision to participate in research is made by each person who received the research invitation.

APPLICATION FOR RESEARCH PERMIT

A research permit is applied for by using a separate research permit form, see above in the section "Links" section "Research permit form".

Mandatory attachments to the research permit application are the research plan / thesis plan, which clearly describes e.g. the objective of the study and research methods, as well as data collection material (e.g. information for research subjects, consent form and questionnaire or interview framework), data management plan and    privacy notice or data protection notice? (if personal information is collected from research participants). In the case of theses, the signature of the thesis supervisor must also be attached to the research permit application.

On a case-by-case basis, the research permit application may also require other possible attachments. These include, for example, the statement of the Ethics Committee for Human Sciences or the impact assessment (Data Protection Impact Assessment, DPIA) regarding the processing of personal data. Before preparing the impact assessment, the researcher must contact the data protection officer of the data controller. They will help determine its necessity. The data protection officer of the University of Turku can be reached at dpo@utu.fi. The impact assessment template can be found in the links at the bottom of the page.

The signed research permit application with attachments should be submitted to the university Registrary’s Office either by email to kirjaamo@utu.fi  or by post to Kirjaamo (Registry), 20014 University of Turku.

INFORMATION REQUESTS FROM THE PERSONAL DATA REGISTER OR DOCUMENTS AND INVITATIONS TO PARTICIPATE IN A RESEARCH

If your research requires the delivery of personal data from the University’s databases or registers containing personal data  or the University’s confidential documents, information requests about them must be made using separate forms. The granted research permit must be attached to the information request. The request for the delivery of data from the student information system is sent to the Student Support Services, and the request for information concerning the staff's personal data is sent to the Human Resources Director. Information requests regarding documents used in research are submitted to the central archive.

If an invitation to research is to be sent centrally to university staff or students, the University Communications Unit and the Student Centre Disco will consider suitable channels for disseminating the research invitation on a case-by-case basis.

NOTE! The research permit procedure is in the pilot phase and its instructions will be specified. It is also planned to combine the permit forms.