Research Ethics

All human research carried out by staff and graduate research students at the Unversity of Melbourne requires ethics approval.  In Law this includes, but is not restricted to, gathering information about human beings (and organisations) through interviewing, surveying, questionnaries, oberservation of human behaviour and audio/video taping.

The Law Human Ethics Advisory Group (Law HEAG) conducts technical and ethical reviews of all projects emanating from the Law School; provides feedback to researchers on their research; approves Minimal Risk applications; and provides advice to the Human Ethics Sub Committee (HESC) or (higher risk) Project applications.

It is recommended researchers allow sufficient time for the review of your application as your research cannot commence until you have received ethics approval.  For graduate research students it is important to plan your fieldwork and the ethics application early in your candidature - at the 6-month meeting is a good time.  Most applications require a two-stage review process, and this should be accounted for when considering your project commencement date.