If you’d like to talk to us about your experiences managing slurry, or what you think about the decision support tools currently available, you’re welcome to contact us.
If you’ve already spoken to us, and are participating in the project, your role and rights as a participant are outlined below. If you have questions that aren’t answered here, you’re welcome to contact us for a chat.
Information for participants
SLURRY MAX is a project run by a team of 8 researchers from Lancaster University, Bangor University, Cranfield University, Queens University Belfast and SRUC.
What is the study about?
We are looking at how ‘decision support tools’ that are designed to aid the management of slurry (such as PLANET and RB209) can be made more useful and effective for farmers. We are doing this in four locations (England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) and in three ways: in focus groups of up to 12 people, taking place over approx. 2 hours; in short, ad hoc interviews, taking between 2-20 minutes (depending on participant); and in invited farm visits, taking approximately 1-2 hours.
Why have I been invited to participate?
We have approached you because we are interested in understanding the slurry/manure management process on different farms, and whether or not farmers use decision support tools. We would be very grateful if you would take part in this study.
What are the possible benefits from taking part?
By taking part, you are helping us to improve decision support tools, to make them work better for farmers.
Do I have to take part?
No. It’s completely up to you to decide whether or not you take part. Your participation is voluntary.
What if I change my mind?
If you are being interviewed: If you change your mind, you are free to withdraw at any time during your participation in this study. If you want to withdraw, please let us know, and we will extract any ideas or information you contributed to the study and destroy them. However, it is difficult and often impossible to take out data from one specific participant when this has already been anonymised or pooled together with other people’s data. This means you can only withdraw up to 6 weeks after taking part in the study.
If you are in a focus group: If you change your mind, you are free to leave the group at any point. However, as your responses will be anonymous and part of a wider contribution, it will not be possible to remove any information or ideas you have already given.
What are the possible disadvantages and risks of taking part?
It is unlikely that there will be any major disadvantages to taking part. The focus group will take up to two hours of your time (by prior agreement). Interviews can be ended at any point, but may take up to 30 minutes of your time.
Will my data be identifiable?
After the interview/focus group, only the researchers conducting this study will have access to the ideas you share with us. We will keep all personal information about you (e.g. your name and other information about you that can identify you) confidential, and will not share it with others. We will remove any personal information from the written record of your contribution.
Participants in the focus group will be asked not to disclose information outside of the focus group and with anyone not involved in the focus group without the relevant person’s express permission.
How will we use the information you have shared with us and what will happen to the results of the research study?
We will use the information you have shared with us only in the following ways:
We will use it for research purposes only. This will include academic journal articles, and professional reports on how decision support tools can be improved. The results of the study will also be presented at academic and practitioner conferences, and be used to inform decision support tool developers (such as AHDB) on how the tools can be improved.
When writing up the findings from this study, we would like to reproduce some of the views and ideas you share. We will only use anonymised quotes (e.g. from our interview with you), so that although we will use your exact words, you cannot be identified in our publications.
How my data will be stored?
Your data will be stored in encrypted files (that is no-one other than the research team will be able to access them) and on password-protected computers. We will keep data that can identify you separately from non-personal information (e.g. your views on a specific topic).In accordance with University guidelines, We will keep the data securely for a minimum of ten years. This study is funded by NERC. The funder expects us to make our data available for future use by other researchers. We will exclude all personal data from archiving. We intend to archive the anonymised data via the UK data archive.
What if I have a question or concern?
If you have any queries or if you are unhappy with anything that happens concerning your participation in the study, please contact Claire Waterton, Sociology, Bowland North, Lancaster University, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA14YW, c.waterton@lancaster.ac.uk, 01524 593322.
If you have any concerns or complaints that you wish to discuss with a person who is not directly involved in the research, you can also contact:
Professor Corinne May-Chahal, Head of Sociology, at c.may-chahal@lancaster.ac.uk, 01524 594104.
This study has been reviewed and approved by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and Lancaster Management School’s Research Ethics Committee.