Welcome to Self-Assessment for Governance and Ethics - Human and Data Research (SAGE-HDR).
All members of the University proposing to carry out research involving humans (including data/tissue) and/or animals (including data/tissue) should assess whether their project requires review by an ethics committee before recruitment or data collection commences.
There are two SAGE forms:
SAGE-HDR (human and/or data research) focuses specifically on research with humans or data (including secondary data, engineering projects or the physical sciences) and will guide you as to whether your study will require review by an ethics committee.
SAGE-AR (animal research) focuses specifically on animal research and will guide you as to whether your study will require review by an ethics committee, for the animal research component of your study.
PLEASE NOTE: Completing SAGE-HDR will inform you whether you have to complete a SAGE-AR form. If you have both human and animal research in your project, you will have to complete both forms. As human and animal ethics committees are separate, you may be required to submit documentation to two ethics committees, to review the animal and human elements of your research respectively.
SAGE-HDR must be completed by clicking 'Finish' at the end of the declaration page by:
- Staff and visiting researchers.
- Postgraduate research students (PhD, Psych D and EngD) .
- Postgraduate taught students (MSc).
- Undergraduate students.
Completing SAGE-HDR will help you decide if your research needs ethical and/or governance review by the University Ethics Committee (UEC) or require any external approvals.
If your responses in SAGE-HDR indicate that your research requires internal ethical and/or governance review, you will need to make an ethics and governance application to be reviewed. Templates for the documents required in an ethics and governance application can be found on can be found on the Ethics MySurrey page for undergrads and postgrad taught students, or the RIGO SurreyNet page for staff and postgrad research students.
If you are already aware that you require external approvals, such as NHS REC or HRA approval, you may contact RIGO@surrey.ac.uk directly without having to complete a SAGE-HDR form.
Further information on how the data you provide in SAGE-HDR is used can be found in our privacy notice.
You can navigate forwards and backwards through SAGE-HDR by clicking on the 'Next' and 'Previous' buttons at the bottom of the page.
If you are a student, you must check with your supervisor that your responses are correct before completing the form. DO NOT click on the ‘Finish’ button, until your supervisor has confirmed your responses to the questions are correct. You can do this by, clicking on the ‘finish later’ button at the bottom of the declaration page. Enter your own email address and the weblink will be sent to you by email. You can then forward this link to your supervisor to access your SAGE-HDR form.
You can stop and save your answers by clicking on 'finish later' at the bottom of each page and returning later to complete it. Once you are ready you should click on the 'Finish' button.