Research Ethics Approval for Honours and Coursework Masters

Research projects involving human subjects or human-related materials may require ethics approval. As part of designing the project, you must investigate if ethics approval is required: if it is, you must obtain ethics approval before you:

  1. start collecting data;
  2. can obtain the confirmation of candidature milestone for your research higher degree.

The Humanities and Social Sciences (HASS) Faculty Low and Negligible Risk Sub-Committee can review research protocols from honours and coursework masters students, so long as:

  • The project involves no more than low risk (research is "low risk" where the only foreseeable risk is one of discomfort), and
  • The Sub-Committee considers that it does not require institutional review by a University ethics committee.

Please submit your low risk research protocols to the HASS Faculty LNR Sub-Committee for consideration after reviewing the School of Music guidelines for obtaining ethics approval.

If you enrol in a semester-long research thesis or project course and ethics approval is not granted for your project by the end of the second teaching week, you cannot undertake the proposed research project. In this case, you must either:

  1. Change your project to one that does not require ethics approval; or
  2. Drop your enrolment in the course for that semester.

Master of Music students who take option two can continue to seek approval for their proposed project and enrol in the course in the following semester.