Human Research Ethics

Notre Dame is committed to Best Practice in Research. Before conducting research that involves humans as participants, you must receive approval from the University's Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC). This includes:

  • use of questionnaire/surveys
  • use of individual and/or focus group interviews
  • psychological, physical and mental testing
  • observation of human participants
  • access to documents or records
  • use of human biospecimens
  • use of human cells in culture or human-derived cell lines
  • use of databases

Starting research before you have ethics approval may constitute research misconduct.  Contact the Research Ethics Officer for more information.