PDF: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/POSTpn243.pdf
Postnote no. 243
Recent legislation such as the Data Protection Act, Human Tissue Bill and Mental Capacity Act emphasise the importance of ethical scrutiny of research on human participants. Despite this, the process of ethical review is controversial. The UK system for ethical review is complex and varies between different types of research. This note describes the various systems for ethical review of research involving humans and outlines key issues with the existing system, and applies it to social science research as well as the biological sciences.
