Incentives

The University’s Code of Practice on Investigations Involving Human Participants states that there should be no excessive financial inducement that may cause coercion, actual or implied, and that might persuade people to take part in an investigation against their better judgement.

• Any payment made to volunteers should be for expenses, time, inconvenience or subsistence and never for risk to the person.
• Any incentives should be paid pro-rata rather than ‘on completion’, so that participants’ do not feel that they will be disadvantaged by withdrawing or coerced into continuing.
• Incentives must be paid through University funds, not directly from investigators or students’ personal money.
• Incentives should not normally be used to coerce participants into improved performance in activities e.g. through prizes for meeting performance criteria or to encourage competition against other participants, unless this is a specific focus of the research. Random prize draws are acceptable.
• Specific payment values can be used in the context of study specific advertising. However, payment amount should be discreet and not prominent within the advertisement i.e. it should not be the headline or very first line of the advert.
• Investigators must ensure that they have appropriate measures and recruitment procedures in place to ensure that participants are genuine if they are paying incentives otherwise fraudulent activity may affect the study results.  For instance, investigators could add a statement in the Information Section of online questionnaires that incentives (or total incentives for studies offering pro-rata payments) would only be paid once per person and individuals would not receive any incentive payments if they were found to have completed the study multiple times

All incentives to participants must be approved by the Ethics Review Sub-Committee. Details must be provided within the Ethics Review Form in LEON.

An enhanced submission will be requested if the incentive raises ethical considerations that require additional scrutiny by the Sub-Committee.

HMRC have confirmed in writing that the amounts paid to volunteers are unlikely to fall within the definition of “earnings” for PAYE or NI purposes. No employment relationship exists and as such there is no requirement for the University to deduct PAYE and NIC from the payments.

Under UK Tax Law, HMRC is entitled to ask for details of payments to non-employees at their discretion. HMRC are aware that, and fully accept that the University would be unable to provide details of the recipients given the confidentiality commitments made to volunteers, and have confirmed that they would not routinely ask for details for small payments such as these.

HMRC have also confirmed that there will be no tax or NIC liability arising on the individual if the sums received do no more than reimburse the individuals for reasonable costs incurred in participating in the trial or research; this includes costs of travel and subsistence. However, should sums exceed those reasonable expenses then the excess may fall to be chargeable to tax as “Miscellaneous Income” potentially giving rise to personal tax liabilities of the individuals which should be notified to the HMRC under Self Assessment.

Where in doubt, investigators should seek additional guidance from the Finance Office, especially in cases where the amounts payable are significant or the participants are also University staff.  Please contact the Payroll Department, Payroll@lboro.ac.uk, for more information.

The Sub-Committee recommends that all payments are made in the form of vouchers rather than cash. The tax implications are the same regardless of whether the payment is in the form of vouchers or cash.

Any research which includes incentives (other than basic expenses) must seek individual clearance from the Sub-Committee by submitting the Ethics Review Form in LEON with additional information about the incentive.  This includes any research which is offering a prize, even if it is only to one of the participants chosen at random at the end of the study, for example awarding a £20 book voucher for completing an on-line questionnaire.