Responding to a conditional opinion (Requested Changes)

Once your ethics application has been reviewed you will receive a decision letter via email. For a conditional opinion, this letter will outline the Research Ethics Review Committee’s feedback and recommended amendments. At the same time your application will be sent back to you on OREMS, and you will be able to edit and resubmit it for review when ready.   

Your conditional opinion letter will also ask you to include a cover letter in your resubmission which should address all the committee’s feedback, point by point, and highlight any changes that you’ve made to your application. The cover letter can also be used to challenge any feedback that you might disagree with, or to ask for clarity on anything you’re usure of. Furthermore, you MUST ensure that any study documents that you edit are re-uploaded to your application with all changes tracked. Failure to do any of this will result in your response being returned to you to complete.  

Once you have submitted your response it will then be reviewed by the Chair of the relevant Research Ethics Committee. They may have additional comments or questions for you to address as another conditional opinion, or they may approve your response and issue a favourable opinion. 

If you have any questions regarding your research ethics application outcome, please contact us at research-ethics@bristol.ac.uk.