Informed Consent Document for Participants in the Agency, Directionality and Function Project to be interviewed or observed in the Sociology of the Purpose Project (SoPP)
UC Davis and UC Davis Health Consent to Participate in Research
Title of study: A Sociological Analysis of the Science of Purpose Project Investigator: James R. Griesemer, PI.
Introduction and Purpose
We are pleased to invite you to join a research study. We request your permission to interview you in connection with our sociological project (the Sociology Project) devoted to a study of the Agency, Directionality, and Function (ADF) project, Part of the John Templeton Foundation’s Science of Purpose program (the Purpose Program, PP). Both projects are sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation.
The purpose of this study is to observe and analyze the ways in which multiple specialties work together to address large-scale, complex research problems, and focuses on the ways in which the social organization of research interacts with the intellectual issues which the research addresses. A description of the project can be found at http://SoPP.ucdavis.edu.
If you agree to be in this research, you will be asked to participate in an interview. Interviews typically will be conducted by videoconferencing, unless we are present at a meeting of Purpose Project participants with you and it is convenient to interview you in person. Interviews typically take between 1 and 2 hours. They’ll be conversational in format, and ask for descriptions of the research being carried out; copies of relevant documents such as proposals, reprints, working memos, etc.; and information on the history of your participation in the Purpose Project, the organization of your research efforts, and the ways in which you interact with researchers in other specialties, administrators, and others with whom you come in contact as part of the research. We also ask about technical or administrative difficulties you’ve encountered as part of the research effort, their effects on the research, and how they are resolved. We’ll ask you for a CV, but we will not ask about your health, financial situation, personal relationships outside the Purpose project, or other personal circumstances.
We will ask for your permission to audio record the interview. If you grant permission, the recording will be encrypted and stored in a way accessible only to members of the Sociology project staff. Recording is completely voluntary, and there is no penalty for declining permission to record or stopping the recording at any time. If we use means of conducting the interview, such as Zoom, which do not allow audio recording without also video recording, we will delete the video as soon as it is created, as it is not needed for this study. The audio recordings will be retained only for the use of our Sociology project staff for the duration of the project and will be deleted after the end of the project.
There is no direct benefit to you from taking part in this study. We hope that the research will, as with other projects in which we have interviewed scientists about their work, allow you to gain significant insight into the ways your research is conducted, influenced by surrounding circumstances, and influence others indirectly. We hope that the research will benefit scholarly understanding of complex, interdisciplinary research and how the social organization of research interacts with the intellectual issues which the research addresses. We further hope that the research will benefit policy discussions regarding support for complex, interdisciplinary research spanning more than one school of thought.
While the risks of this research are minimal, some of the questions might make you feel uncomfortable or upset. Your participation in the interview is entirely voluntary, and you’re free to decline to answer any question or stop the interview at any time. There is no penalty for declining to participate or answer questions, or to stopping the interview at any time.
Confidentiality
As with all research, there is a chance that confidentiality could be compromised; however, we are taking precautions to minimize this risk. Your responses to the interview questions may include information that identifies you. This identifiable information will be handled as confidentially as possible. However, individuals from UC Davis who oversee research may access your data during audits or other monitoring activities.
To minimize the risks of breach of confidentiality, data will be accessible only to our research team. We will store and transmit data in encrypted form, transmitting it using virtual private networks and storking on secure university servers. Video recordings will be deleted immediately, if they are produced incidentally to audio recording, as they are not needed for this project. Audio recordings will be encrypted and stored only for the duration of the project. This study will abide by all applicable law, regulations, and standard operating procedures governing the protection of human subjects, student information and protected health information.
Any data we collect with your identifiable information (e.g., your name or date of birth) as a part of this study will not be used to answer other research questions or be shared with other investigators for other research.
Compensation
You will not be paid for taking part in this study.
Rights
Taking part in research is completely voluntary. You are free to decline to take part in the project. You can decline to answer any questions and you can stop taking part in the project at any time. Whether or not you choose to take part, or answer any question, or stop taking part in the project, there will be no penalty to you or loss of benefits to which you are otherwise entitled.
Questions
If you have any questions about this research, please feel free to contact the investigator at jrgriesemer@ucdavis.edu.
If you have any questions about your rights or treatment as a research participant in this study, please contact the UC Davis, Institutional Review Board by phone: 916 703 9158 or by email: HS-IRBEducation@ucdavis.edu.
Thank you very much in advance for your participation in our research.
Sincerely,
James R. Griesemer, PI, and the Sociology of the Science of Purpose Program team.
Principal Investigator
James R. Griesemer, PhD jrgriesemer@ucdavis.edu
http://SoPP.ucdavis.edu
Department of Philosophy University of California,
Davis One Shields Avenue
Davis, CA 95616, USA
HRP-502 Consent Template- Survey/Interview Research – 2018 Common Rule Compliant
Document Revision Date: October 27, 2021
James Griesemer @ UCDavis 