Ethics and SONA resources
SONA resources
For more information about using SONA to recruit participants, refer to the UNSW Sona Researchers Guide.
Ethics resources
When submitting an ethics application at UNSW, you must determine if your project involves ‘negligible risk’, ‘low risk’, or ‘more than low risk’ according to the NHMRC.
‘Negligible risk research’ describes research in which there is no foreseeable risk of harm or discomfort; and any foreseeable risk is no more than inconvenience.
‘Low risk research’ describes research in which the only foreseeable risk is one of discomfort. Research in which the risk for participants is more serious than discomfort is not low risk.
Negligible and low risk applications are reviewed by the Human Research Ethics Approval Panel – C: Behavioural Sciences (HREAP-C). Applications that involve more than low risk are reviewed by the Human Research Ethics Committee ().
Human Research Ethics Approval Panel – C: Behavioural Sciences (HREAP-C)
The HREAP-C accepts requests for review and approval by UNSW School of Psychology staff and students.
The HREAP-C provides review and approval of:
1) NEW ‘negligible’ or ‘low risk’ projects.
To request approval for a new study, complete your application at following this guidance.
2) MODIFICATION to projects already approved by the HREAP-C.
To request approval of a modification (e.g. to add an investigator, change questions/surveys/tasks, change the study duration or recompense, recruit from new sources) of a project approved by the HREAP-C before AUG 2023 follow this legacy modification guidance.Ìý
To request approval of a project approved by the HREAP-C after AUG 2023, complete your modification request at
3) ADDITIONAL SONA PARTICIPANTS.
To request approval for additional SONA participants, complete the HREAP-C Application for Participants form using this checklist.
Additional instructions and forms you may need to prepare your submissions are available below.
Ethics and Sona resources
Please follow the links below for more information and resources on the Research Participation program for staff and graduate students.
Our people
Professor Eva Kimonis
Research areas: developmental psychopathology; child clinical psychology; externalising and conduct problems; aggression and antisocial behaviour; violent offending; development, assessment and treatment of callous-unemotional traits and psychopathy.
Professor Thomas Whitford
Research areas: schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders; schizotypy; understanding the psychological and neurophysiological basis of delusions and hallucinations; understanding the basis of sensory suppression to self-generated actions; Event-Related Potentials (ERPs); Diffusion-Tensor Imaging (DTI).
Professor Jessica Grisham
Research areas: obsessive-compulsive disorder, hoarding disorder, and related disorders. Comorbidity and classification of anxiety disorders. Investigations into processes that are associated with various types of psychopathology, including emotion regulation and thought suppression.
Associate Professor Jenny Richmond
My research program addresses the development of memory and emotion during infancy and early childhood and takes a developmental cognitive neuroscience approach. I'm particularly interested in the development of relational memory and the role it might play in representational flexibility. My recent work has looked at age-related changes in episodic memory and future thinking during early childhood and the development of rapid facial mimicry in infancy.