The Human Research Ethics Committee

The remit of the Human Research Ethics Committee is to advise on ethical considerations relating to any research which involves investigations with humans or human materials, to scrutinise and give approval where appropriate to research carried out by and for the Open University and to make recommendations to the Open University's Research Committee. Non-OU staff can access information about either committee by contacting the HREC Secretary.

Does your research need ethics approval?

If you are planning a research project that involves collecting data or biological samples from human participants, you should risk assess your research for any ethics related issues using the HREC Project Registration and Risk Checklist. If you feel that your research is low risk you should send the completed checklist to Research-Rec-Review so that your research can be assessed for the level of ethics review that is required.  If you have not already done so, refer to the OU Ethics Principles for Research involving Human Participants ►

However, if you do judge that your research does have ethics implications or is of a sensitive nature you can bypass the HREC Project Registration and Risk Checklist and go directly to the full HREC approval process.