Standards

Research governance framework 

The Gambling Commission's Research Governance Framework.

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Published
30 April 2026

Last updated
30 April 2026 - Changes

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Contents

• Research governance framework 

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• Introduction
• • Research at the Gambling Commission
  • The Research Governance Framework
  • Developing and updating the research governance framework
• Ethical gambling research
• • Introduction to ethical gambling research
  • Core research principles and guidelines for ethical gambling research
  • Research involving AI
  • Conflicts of interest
  • Research misconduct
• Ethical approval for gambling research with human participants
• • Which projects require ethical approval
  • General considerations for ethical approval in gambling research
  • The ethical approval process
• The peer review process
• Roles and responsibilities
• Other external research involvement
• Research data governance
• • General principles of research data governance and research data safeguarding
  • What documents are required?
  • Data sharing
• Dissemination of research
• Monitoring, review and data corrections
• Appendices
• • Appendix 1: Ethics Checklist for projects requiring full Ethical Approval
  • Appendix 2: Data management plan checklist checklist
  • Appendix 3: Peer review checklist
  • Appendix 4: Research misconduct

Appendix 2: Data management plan checklist checklist

Data collection

The following questions are asked about data collection:

• What data will be produced? (for example quantitative, qualitative, from surveys, images, interviews etc)
• What will be the format and scale of the data? (for example file formats, number of records, software used, databases etc)
• Will the project use existing data or generate new data?
• Data quality and standards: what data quality control mechanisms are in place? (for example quality checks for data sets; quality checks for participant responses to limit fraudulent, bot and duplicate responses and so on)
• Has consent for data sharing and re-use been obtained?

Data management, documentation and curation

The following questions are asked about data management, documentation and curation:

• How will the data be documented and described?
• How will the data be stored and backed up?
• How long will the data be stored for?
• What metadata will be produced about the data generated from the research? (for example data descriptions that enable research data to be used by others)
• Will the data need to be updated? If so, please include plans for updating the data
• What are the long-term archiving and data sharing plans?

Data security and confidentiality

The following questions are asked about data management, documentation and curation:

• Are there any risks to data security? How will these be managed? (for example risks to the confidentiality and security of the data, risks of misuse)
• Describe the main processes for data storage and processing of personal data, data access, data access controls etc)

Data sharing and access

The following questions are asked about data management, documentation and curation:

• Is the data you propose to collect in the study suitable for sharing within the team and with external users (including international)? If yes, briefly state why it is suitable and explain how risks, such as re-identification will be managed. If no, please explain why the data will not be suitable for sharing.
• If you are re-using data, what steps will you take to ensure further sharing of the data?
• Indicate how potential new users (outside of the Gambling Commission) can find out about your data and identify whether it could be suitable for their research purposes. This can be done through making summary information (metadata)available online or in other recognised databases or catalogues. How widely accessible is this repository? How will you make your data FAIR, including sharing necessary methods or software tools to access it?
• Indicate where your policy or approach to data sharing is (or will be) published. Will unique and persistent identifiers be attributed to your data, methods, or software to allow data users to cite them and data generators to track them?
• Identify who makes or will make the decision on whether to supply or grant access to research data to a potential new user.
• Are there any restrictions or delays to sharing? What actions are planned to limit such restrictions? (for example restrictions might arise due to participant confidentiality or consent agreements)
• What are the timescales for when data will be accessible to others outside of the Gambling Commission?
• Will external users be bound by data sharing agreements? If so, what will be their main responsibilities?
• Will there be any international collaboration? If so, how will data be accessed and shared? What risks are involved and how will they be managed? Is there any overseas legislation that might permit access to third parties or authorities without consent from all parties?

Responsibilities

Who will be responsible for:

• data management
• metadata creation
• data security
• quality assurance of data
• implementation and management of this DMP.

Organisational policies

Are there any organisational policies that are relevant to this research project?

Previous section
Appendix 1: Ethics Checklist for projects requiring full Ethical Approval Next section
Appendix 3: Peer review checklist

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Last updated: 30 April 2026

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