Understanding your review outcome responses from the Western Health Low Risk Ethics Panel (LREP)
Once your application has undergone ethical and governance review by the Western Health Low Risk Ethics Panel (WH LREP), the Office for Research would have advised you of the review outcome of your project application. Please see the below explanations to understand what it means for you and what you are required to do next.
Approved Unconditionally
If your project has been issued unconditional approval by the LREP then your project has met all the principles and guidelines of the National Statement (2007) and Western Health Research Governance requirements.
Investigators may commence their project once they have received acknowledgment/approval correspondence from the Office for Research.
Investigators are required to notify the Office for Research of the date when their project commences.
Conditional Approval/ Approved subject to…
The project meets most of the principles and guidelines in the National Statement (2007) and/or requires further documentation for Research Governance.
Investigators should not commence their study.
Investigators are required to address or clarify the concerns and queries raised by the LREP and resubmit to the Office for Research.
Approval is subject to a receipt of a satisfactory response to the LREP queries.
Rejected
The project does not meet the principles and guidelines set out in the National Statement (2007).
Investigators should not commence their study.
Investigators are to revise their application completely and address the points raised by the LREP; this includes reobtaining signatures from Investigators and Head of Departments once the application has been revised.
No decision
The LREP feel that the project is incomplete where they cannot adequately review the project. Investigators are required to clarify and revise submission according to the LREP comments.
Investigators should not commence their study.
Escalate to full HREC
Your project may not fall under the jurisdiction of the Western Health LREP and require review by a fully constituted Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC).
Investigators must submit to Melbourne Health HREC according to their requirements here. Once ethical approval has been issued by the HREC, investigators are required to submit a Governance application to the Office for Research. Please see here for Western Health Governance submission requirements. Investigators should not commence their study at Western Health until they have received authorisation from the Office for Research.
