Research conducted at another organisation

External organisations

The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research recommends that institutions adopt processes to eliminate the unnecessary duplication of ethical review.

To meet this, the University of Newcastle’s Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) may recognise an ethics approval from an external HREC, as long as that HREC is registered with the National Health & Medical Research Council.

It may also define the circumstances in which ethical clearance from the University HREC is not required, such as approval from an external HREC where a formal agreement is in place with that institution.

Research projects that have obtained approval from an external human research ethics committee recognised by the University of Newcastle must register that approval with the University’s HREC and provide all associated documentation to support that approval prior to the commencement of the approved research activity.

Examples of external registered HRECs include the Human Research Ethics Committees at Local Health Districts in NSW, other state-based health departments and hospitals, research institutes, national medical councils, etc.

Hunter New England and Central Coast Local Health Districts

If research involves patients, facilities or records of Hunter New England Health, an application for ethics approval must be made to the Hunter New England Health Research Ethics Committee.

In most cases, if the research is to be conducted by staff or students of the University of Newcastle (and provided ethics approval is granted by the Hunter New England Health HREC) it will not be necessary to make a full application to the University HREC.

However, this approval must be registered with the University of Newcastle’s HREC of the research activity, and researchers will not be covered by the University’s insurance provisions if the project is not registered.

For further information about Hunter New England Health ethics processes, contact:

HNE Research Office
Hunter New England Local Health District
E:  HNELHD-ResearchOffice@health.nsw.gov.au
P:  (02) 4921-4140
L:  Research Ethics|Research Governance|Research Development

The Central Coast Local Health District does not currently have a human research ethics committee. Instead, it has a standing agreement with HNE Health that ‘more than low risk’ applications will be reviewed by the Hunter New England Health HREC. For ‘low risk’ and ‘negligible risk’ applications, the Central Coast LHD uses local review processes.

Schools and pre-schools

In addition to being approved by a registered HREC, research projects that involve NSW Government pre-schools or schools must also be approved by the NSW Department of Education via its State Education Research Applications Process (SERAP).

The study information/invitation for research participants that is submitted to the NSW Department of Education as part of an application for approval to conduct the research in government schools must be the same version as that submitted to and/or approved by the approving HREC.

It will be necessary to prepare a human ethics application and a SERAP application that take into account both the SERAP Guidelines and the recommended content outlined in the University's Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form, which University staff and HDR candidates can access via our internal ReSearchHub.

For details about NSW Department of Education requirements, contact:

Robert Stevens 
Manager, Quality Assurance/Research 
Policy, Planning and Reporting
NSW Department of Education 
robert.stevens@det.nsw.edu.au
(02) 9244 5060

For additional advice

Visit the 'Research with external ethics approval' page.