Taking part in a research project is arguably part of the wider university experience, but there is a problem with using block emails within the University system as a method to recruit participants. The use of block emails to send unsolicited requests for recruitment to research projects or for participation in research such as online questionnaire completion is not permitted and contravenes the university's research ethics guidelines. Students and staff may not use internal email for this purpose nor should staff agree to send on requests from students to any internal block email lists that they may have access to.
The alternative for recruiting staff and students to research studies, once approval has been given by the University Research Ethics Committee (UREC), is to use the Research-Activity Google Group.