Ethical Review Decision Making Tool

Any project that involves human participants, their data or tissue requires ethical review. Please consult the Do I Need Ethical Approval? page if you are unsure.

This page can be used to determine the type of ethical review required. This will be determined by the type of study, the participant group, and how participants are recruited/how data or tissue are collected.

The table below provides guidance to researchers on the specific ethics committees particular studies should be submitted to.

Ethics approval must be in place before the study begins.

Queries should be directed to the appropriate member of the Governance and Ethics team via the RIS Contacts page.

Type of study	NHS REC	BSREC	HSSREC	AWERB	SCREC	MoDREC	Other approvals required
Research involving NHS patients, their identifiable data or tissue	YES	No	No	No	No	No	Research sponsor May need CAG approval (access to identifiable data -without patient consent)
Service evaluations and clinical audits involving NHS patients	No	YES	No	No	No	No	Notification to NHS Trust(s) R+D dept./audit dept.
Service evaluations and clinical audits (non NHS patients)	No	YES	YES	No	No	No
Research limited to the use of previously collected anonymous NHS patient data or tissue	No	YES	No	No	No	No	HRA + Research sponsor
Research involving NHS staff (and not patients) recruited by virtue of their professional role	No	YES	YES	No	No	No	HRA + Research sponsor
Research limited to use of or access to a care organisation's/NHS premises or facilities	No	YES	No	No	No	No	HRA + Research sponsor
The generation of new data or samples from human participants that are not NHS patients	No	YES	YES	No	No	No
Studies involving the Ministry of Defence personnel	No	No	No	No	No	YES
Studies involving Medical devices	YES	No	No	No	No	No	MHRA approval may be required
Studies involving adults lacking capacity	YES	No	No	No	YES	No
Studies involving human samples	YES*	YES*	No	No	No	No
Prison research (requiring access to data, staff or offenders).	YES (if health care related)	YES	YES	No	No	No	HMPPS approval aka NOMS
Use of non-human in-vivo procedures	No	No	No	YES	No	No
Research using data obtained via Social Media	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

All studies taking place in the Faculty Science, Engineering and Medicine (excluding Psychology) that involve human participants, their tissue and/or their data (including those being conducted by staff and students/supervisors) that do not require NHS Research Ethics Committee approval are required to obtain Biomedical and Scientific Research Ethics Committee (BSREC) approval before the research can be undertaken. Research undertaken in the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Social Science and the Department of Psychology should submit their ethics approval to Humanities and Social Sciences Research Ethics Committee (HSSREC).

*Which ethics committee needs to review studies involving human samples depends on where they are collected from, whether they are anonymous, and whether they have been collected with consent for use in research. Where samples have not been collected with consent for use in research, even when they are anonymous to the researcher, an application will need to be submitted to an NHS REC. Certain tissue banks can also issue ethical approval as part of the application process for obtaining human samples, providing these have been collected with consent for use in research. If studies involving samples falls under this category, please check the approval with the BSREC Secretary BSREC at warwick dot ac dot uk before the project begins.