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Ethics review and other approvals


Ethics approval is necessary but not sufficient for a project to proceed. The National Statement draws a clear line between ethics review and the separate authorisation a project needs before it can actually go ahead. In addition to ethics approval, human research must also be authorised by each institution with responsibility for overseeing it, and that authorisation should take into account, but not re-review, the issues already settled in ethical review (NS Chapter 5.1, Introduction).

In practice, this means an HREC decision clears the ethics question but does not, by itself, give a researcher or evaluator access to anyone's schools, clients, prisoners, or patients. Institutions that host or govern research, such as education departments, health services, and justice agencies, run their own separate authorisation processes, and these apply independently of ethics review. In educational, justice, and child protection research, the National Statement expects this engagement to be built into the research design from the outset (NS 4.3.13).

Because a project can be subject to oversight from more than one institution, the National Statement also requires that, wherever more than one institution has governance responsibility, each adopt a review or authorisation process that minimises any unnecessary duplication of ethics review (NS 5.5.1). Some additional review is truly warranted, because it addresses risks that an external reviewer could not see; it becomes duplication only when it repeats ground already covered without serving a distinct purpose. Ethics review can support these other approvals, by demonstrating that risks have been considered and safeguards put in place, but it cannot replace them.

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Navigating multiple ethics reviews

When more than one Australian HREC may be involved, and how institutions should handle external review.

State and territory requirements

How privacy, health-information, and data-linkage law sit alongside ethics approval.

Government review bodies

The separate approval processes run by education, health, justice, and other government bodies.