If you work in program evaluation, social research, or policy development, you've likely encountered this problem: you need to start work, but you can't fully describe what you'll be doing because the design depends on what you discover along the way. Traditional ethics review processes, built for linear research designs, can feel like roadblocks in these contexts. The good news is that the National Statement 2025 explicitly accommodates developmental and iterative approaches.
What is developmental evaluation and research?
Developmental evaluation is an approach designed for contexts of innovation, complexity, and emergent strategy. Unlike traditional evaluation, which assesses a stable intervention against predetermined criteria, developmental evaluation works in real time with programs, policies, or initiatives that are themselves evolving. The evaluator isn't a distant assessor; they're embedded in the process, providing feedback that shapes what happens next.
Michael Quinn Patton, who pioneered the approach, describes developmental evaluation as suited to environments where "the path is being laid while walking it." It's evaluation as navigation, not verdict. The Australian Institute of Family Studies notes that developmental evaluation is particularly valuable when "the intervention is innovative or adaptive, the context is complex or rapidly changing, or stakeholders want to learn and adapt in real time."
Developmental evaluation shows up frequently in:
- Social policy pilots, where program design evolves based on early participant feedback and implementation learnings;
- Market research for emerging products or services, where consumer insights directly reshape what's being tested; and,
- Complex systems interventions, such as place-based initiatives where community needs and responses inform program adjustments.
The challenge has been that ethics committees traditionally want a complete protocol before approval with all the research questions and instruments laid out. Developmental approaches, by definition, can't provide that.
What the National Statement 2025 says
The National Statement recognises this tension and offers a pathway. Paragraph 3.1.8 states:
"Where the total project cannot be described in advance because the design and detail of successive stages will be informed by preceding stages, researchers should provide a description of the stages that are foreseen and how they intend to seek ethics approval for each stage."
This is explicit permission for staged approval. You don't need a fully formed protocol to begin ethics review. What you need is transparency about what you know, what you don't know yet, and how you'll seek approval as the work unfolds.
Paragraph 4.8.6, though written for research in crises and natural disasters, provides a useful model for how partial protocols can work more broadly and be handled by HRECs. The principles of early engagement, clear communication about what's provisional, and structured processes for updating approvals apply just as readily to developmental evaluation as they do to disaster research.
Partial protocols in practice
Imagine you're evaluating a new service model for vulnerable families. The evaluation has two phases:
- Process evaluation: documenting implementation, identifying barriers and enablers, understanding staff and participant experiences
- Outcomes evaluation: assessing whether the service achieves its intended impacts
You can design the process evaluation now as you know you'll be interviewing staff, observing service delivery, and reviewing program documents. But the outcomes evaluation will depend on what the process evaluation reveals. You might need to explore mental health outcomes, or housing stability, or employment pathways, but you won't know which until you understand how the service actually operates in practice.
Under a traditional ethics process, you'd either wait to apply until both phases are designed (delaying the process evaluation), or submit a vague outcomes plan that doesn't meaningfully address risks. Neither is ideal.
A partial protocol approach works differently, and it is one that the Iris Ethics HREC is equipped to handle. In this case you would submit an application that:
- Fully describes the process evaluation methods and risks;
- Outlines the likely scope and approach for outcomes evaluation;
- Explicitly states that detailed outcomes methodology will be provided once process findings are available; and,
- Commits to submitting an amendment before outcomes data collection begins.
The ethics committee reviews what's before them, assesses the risks they can assess, and approves the work on the understanding that updates will follow. Typically, these updates are treated as minor amendments because the ethical framework is already established.
This approach offers real advantages. Researchers get early feedback on potential risks and mitigation strategies. Work isn't held up waiting for details that can't yet be known. And perhaps most importantly, the ethics review team becomes a trusted partner in the design process rather than a gatekeeper at the end of it.
The co-design question
Developmental evaluation often overlaps with co-design, and this is where researchers sometimes get confused about when ethics review is required.
The National Statement (page 8) is clear that pre-research co-design activities don't constitute human research and typically don't require ethics review:
"Consultation and engagement with potential participants, co-researchers and community representatives that precedes the development, design or conduct of the research is not itself human research and typically does not require ethics review."
So when does co-design cross the line into research requiring review? A useful framing is when co-design stakeholders shift from being the evaluator/researcher to being the evaluand/researched. If you're consulting with community members about what questions matter and how to ask them, that's co-design. If you're now collecting data about those community members' experiences, behaviours, or outcomes, that's research/evaluation.
In practice, the boundary is messier than this suggests, especially in developmental contexts where co-design and data collection are genuinely intertwined. As we've written previously, if your project will eventually require ethics review, early engagement is valuable even during the co-design phase, particularly if there are already identifiable risks that can be assessed and mitigated.
Examples from the field
Social research: youth participation programs
A research team is studying how young people engage with civic decision-making processes. The initial research phase involves workshops with youth advisory groups to understand current barriers. The team knows they'll then want to test interventions, perhaps new deliberative formats or digital engagement tools, but they don't yet know which interventions will be worth testing. A partial protocol covers the exploratory phase and commits to amendment once interventions are designed based on youth input.
Market research: service innovation
A financial services company is developing products for gig economy workers. They begin with in-depth interviews to understand financial behaviours and needs. Based on these findings, they'll prototype solutions and test them with the same population. The initial protocol covers the exploratory research; the testing phase is approved via amendment once the prototypes exist and the testing methodology can be fully described.
Policy evaluation: place-based initiatives
A government department is piloting a neighbourhood-level intervention to improve social cohesion. The evaluation will document implementation and assess outcomes, but the outcome measures need to be responsive to what the community values and what the program actually delivers (which is adaptive). The ethics application covers the implementation documentation and community consultation about what matters. Outcome measurement approaches are developed iteratively and approved through amendments.
What this means for researchers/evaluators and ethics committees
For researchers/evaluators, don't let the absence of a complete design stop you from seeking ethics approval. If you're working developmentally, say so. Describe what you know, explain what you don't know yet and why, and commit to providing updates. Most ethics committees, particularly those experienced with evaluation and applied social research, will work with you.
For ethics committees, the National Statement explicitly supports a HREC's capacity to approve staged or partial protocols. The question isn't whether HRECs can do this, but how it can be done clearly and consistently. Establishing processes for reviewing partial protocols, communicating expectations about amendments, and treating updates as part of the original approval (rather than new applications) all support ethical research and evaluation without unnecessarily constraining methodological responsiveness.
Summary
The accommodation for developmental and iterative approaches in the National Statement 2025 reflects a more sophisticated understanding of how much applied research and evaluation actually works. Linear designs are the exception, not the rule, in complex social contexts. Ethics review processes that insist on complete protocols before work begins aren't just inconvenient, they push researchers toward rigid designs that may be less ethical because they're less responsive to emerging evidence and stakeholder needs.
Early engagement, transparency about what's provisional, and structured processes for updating approvals enable ethics review to support good research and evaluation rather than impede it.
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AI Disclosure: Initial drafts of the content for this article were prepared using Large Language Models with input from Iris Ethics staff who guided the scope and design. Subsequent revisions and final versions were developed and approved by Iris Ethics staff.