Please ensure that you have identified a supervisor or a gatekeeper from within Cygnet (this may be in addition to any external / university supervisors). Please see the draft researcher-supervisor contract which can be used for guidance.
Download Draft Researcher Contract
Ensure that when you submit your proposal you also enclose all accompanying documentation. Commonly required documents are:
- Participant information sheet
- Consent form
- Debriefing form
- Measures, questionnaires or interview schedules
- Recruitment letters/ posters
Permissions
If you have these already then they can be submitted together with your proposal form.
Hospital manager’s permission
If you are recruiting staff, patients or carers from a ward we will need to see an email from the relevant manager agreeing to this.
Commissioners
If you are recruiting patients then we will need evidence that all relevant commissioners have been made aware of the study. This is usually done by the hospital manager who can then provide an email stating that they have notified all of the commissioners.
University ethics permission
If you are doing a study as part of a university course then we will need to see your university ethics permission and a copy of their insurance detail.
Additional permissions for patient and carers studies
IRAS / REC
If you are doing a study which involves patients then you will need to gain IRAS (integrated research application system) approval and REC (research ethics committee) approval for each of the boards that your patients fall under. This is done through the IRAS system at https://www.myresearchproject.org.uk/
Clinical directorate board permission – Proposal Summary
If you are proposing a patient or carers study then at the time of proposal please also submit a paragraph summarising your study on the Proposal Summary. This will be submitted by our team to the clinical directorate board for permission.
Contracts
If you are not employed by Cygnet and are proposing that you conduct research within the company directly we may ask that an honorary contract is arranged for you during the period of the research.
Process
The research and development core group are a group of clinical and company staff with specialist knowledge from different disciplines and service lines across the company. We meet once a month to review proposals (usually on the last Wednesday of the month). Submissions for review must be received by 4pm on the Wednesday prior to this at the latest in order for them to be included in the agenda and to give the team opportunity to review as we can receive a high volume of documents.
Once your proposal has been reviewed we will contact you with any amendments that are required and you may be asked to resubmit documents.
Once we are happy with the proposed study, we would also need to see evidence of all of the necessary approvals and documents before the study can be finally agreed. Once agreed you will receive an email telling you that you can proceed with your study. You MUST NOT commence the research until this agreement has been received from us.
Ongoing updates
Once you start your study we ask that you provide us with monthly updates and if anything changes, that you submit a deviation form to us and have it agreed BEFORE changing the study.
Download Research Deviation Form
Completion
On completion of the research we expect that a summary of the study is sent to us on the Summary of Research Project form within 3 months.
Download Summary of Research Project Form
It is also expected that any submission for publication or conference presentation is first reviewed by the R&D team.