The (In)Accessibility of UK Universities’ Ethics Application in Humanities and Social Sciences

Research ethic application processes aim to ensure that researchers maintain high ethical standards, integrity, and confidentiality. Despite the importance of ethics applications and the practices they uphold, the process of obtaining a favourable opinion is not always accessible to neurodivergent students and faculty. Ethics applications in UK universities within humanities and social sciences often comprise unnavigable paperwork and communication issues, and systemic issues around epistemic injustice and neurodivergent bias. This chapter reflects on the author’s own experience as an Autistic ADHD research master’s student. It explores how neuronormativity within ethics applications can create barriers for neurodivergent students and faculty. Experiences of other neurodivergent people within this chapter create a better understanding of the current state of ethics applications in UK universities, especially in the humanities and social sciences. These reflections cover formal and informal ethical issues which make university-based research inaccessible for neurodivergent people. From these reflections come recommendations for UK universities to make their ethics application processes more accessible for neurodivergent researchers; and advice for Autistic ADHD individuals undergoing ethics application in UK universities. The aim of this work is to begin to deconstruct the UK ethical application process to make it more accessible to all students and researchers.