Commercially, Culturally or Politically Sensitive Research

Notwithstanding the academic community's general desire for complete openness about all aspects of research, in some cases material must be kept confidential. For example, if you are a health or social science researcher, you may have obtained data from individuals who only agreed to participate in your study provided that nothing was published that would enable them to be identified.

To avoid any problems that may arise in association with the eventual examination, publication of, and access to, your thesis by the public, you are strongly advised to consider whether your research will involve research data or materials that are commercially, culturally or politically sensitive. A question may arise as to whether or not such information, and the sources of such information, should be disclosed to the general public. Additionally, the processes for storage of and access to your research data must be carefully considered to ensure that every effort has been taken to honour the undertaking of confidentiality.

If an embargo on your thesis is likely to be required to protect confidentiality during the examination process and to restrict access to the final print and electronic copies and you have not signed a student project participation agreement, a written application, supported by your supervisors and Postgraduate Coordinator or Head of School should be lodged with the Graduate Centre as early as possible in your candidature. At the very latest, sufficient time must be allowed for applications to be lodged, considered and a decision reached, by the time of thesis submission. Should an application for embargo be lodged after submission of the thesis, the Graduate Centre may not be able to guarantee that information within the thesis has not been disclosed to the general public.

Embargos for the purpose of restricting public access to a thesis are considered exceptional and are generally only allowed on grounds such as:

• Pending the results of a patent application or publishing contract
• Where the thesis contains commercially, culturally, politically, or criminally sensitive data which the author, with prior approval of the University, had given an undertaking to the sources not to disclose or make public for a limited period of time.

In most instances, the period of embargo approved by the Research Education & Development Committee will be two years from the time of submission.