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Ethics approval does not grant access
An HREC decision clears the ethics question. It does not give a researcher or evaluator access to anyone's schools, clients, prisoners, or patients. In addition to ethics approval, human research must also be authorised by each institution with responsibility for oversight before it can proceed, and that authorisation should take into account, but not re-review, the issues already settled in ethical review (NS Chapter 5.1, Introduction). Those institutions run their own approval processes, and these apply independently of ethics review.
Education authorities
Education authorities are the example seen most often in practice. In New South Wales, research in government schools, including use of existing departmental datasets, requires approval through the State Education Research Applications Process (SERAP). In Victoria, recruiting participants through government schools or early childhood settings requires approval through the Research in Schools and Early Childhood Settings (RISEC) process. Other states and territories run their own equivalent processes, and the Catholic and independent school sectors operate separate approvals again. These processes also bring practical requirements such as Working with Children Checks, and they take time; SERAP, for instance, works to a timeframe measured in weeks, and other approval bodies may only meet quarterly. In educational, justice, and child protection research, the National Statement expects this kind of engagement with schools, government departments, or other service providers to be built into the research design where appropriate (NS 4.3.13). HREC review supports these applications rather than replacing them, which is why it is generally best to secure HREC review first and then lodge with the relevant department.
Other sectors
Education is far from the only sector with this system. Engaging with public hospital patients or staff, or with state-held health data, usually means going through a health service's research governance office and, often, a jurisdictional HREC. Iris Ethics does not provide approvals for research taking place in public hospitals, and researchers/evaluators should seek out approvals from the HRECs of these institutions.
Evaluations in justice settings typically require approval from a corrections or justice research committee. Work involving child protection or out-of-home care commonly needs sign-off from the relevant community services department. Where research primarily involves Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and communities, the review process must include seeking advice from HRECs with specialist expertise in this area, or from culturally capable people, with the appropriate approach also depending on jurisdictional requirements (NS 4.7.15); some such research should be referred to a specialist committee rather than approved by a general HREC.
Managing multiple approvals
This naturally raises the prospect of multiple reviews. Where more than one institution has governance oversight, each has a responsibility to adopt a process that minimises unnecessary duplication (NS 5.5.1). The critical word is "unnecessary": some additional reviews are truly warranted, because they address contextual or operational risks an external reviewer could not see, such as local community considerations or the practical realities of a particular setting. For example, education departments need to manage the additional workload placed on teaching staff beyond their regular duties, and their approval processes exist to ensure that this workload does not detract from those core functions.
A worked example: an evaluation surveying and interviewing secondary students recruited through government schools in both New South Wales and Victoria would typically need HREC review first, then a SERAP application in New South Wales and a RISEC application in Victoria, then principal-level agreement at each participating school, with Working with Children Checks arranged before anyone attends a site. None of these stages substitutes for another, and discovering the sequence late is a common cause of avoidable delay. The reliable habit is to identify the relevant approval processes during the design phase, and to sequence them deliberately, obtaining HREC review early because it strengthens the applications that follow.
Related resources
- Ethics review and other approvals: the general distinction between ethics review and institutional authorisation
- Navigating multiple ethics reviews: how institutions and HRECs should handle overlapping review requirements
- Children and young people (NS 4.3): research design considerations for school-based projects
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples (NS 4.7): specialist review requirements for research with these communities
This page was last updated on 9 October 2026.
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This article draws on the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2025) and the NHMRC's Ethical Considerations in Quality Assurance and Evaluation Activities (2014). It is intended as practical guidance and does not constitute legal advice.
AI Disclosure: Initial drafts of the content for these articles 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.