Insights from Recent Projects
At ARTD, we’ve been making a more conscious effort to share what we learn in our evaluations between our teams. Each project brings something new to our collective knowledge and evaluation toolkit, insights that may not make it into a formal report, but which shape how we work together and influence our approach to the next project!
Each week we are posting reflections from one of our consulting teams with takeaways we hope other evaluators will find useful.
Lessons in ethics management from Team Sophia:
Our team has managed several major national projects requiring formal ethics approval, including a large‑scale mental health initiative within the education sector, and a grant-funded program providing financial counselling support to individuals who are currently incarcerated or have recently transitioned back into the community.
Ethics approval for national work is rarely a single, straightforward application. Instead, our projects often require submissions to multiple Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs), depending on the jurisdictions and populations involved. This can include a national HREC, individual state-based HRECs, Aboriginal‑specific HRECs, and education department HRECs—each with their own requirements, forms, and processes. As a result, a single project can involve numerous separate applications, variations, and rounds of correspondence.
Although ethics applications can feel meticulous and time‑consuming, the process is fundamental to ensuring our work is conducted safely, respectfully, and in line with best practice—particularly given the sensitive topics we address and the vulnerable communities we engage with. The rigour required ultimately strengthens the quality and integrity of our evaluations.
Key lessons:
- Collecting data from a national sample can require significant time to prepare, submit and vary multiple ethics applications. Evaluators should account for the time and resources involved when preparing evaluation budgets and during initial planning stages. This is key to managing expectations about evaluation timeframes and budgets.
- Clear documentation and strong version‑control systems help streamline the process across multiple jurisdictions and committees. These practices not only reduce administrative burden but also support smoother communication during the ethics approval process.
