Seeking approval from universities to research the views of their staff : do gatekeepers provide a barrier to ethical research?

A “gatekeeper” controls access to an organization; “gatekeeper approval” is often needed before external research can take place within an organization. We explore the need for gatekeeper approval for research with university staff employing, as a case study, a project which collected data in Australia. This case study addresses known issues, seemingly rarely addressed in the literature. The Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC)'s requirement for approval from individual universities to approach their staff brought significant consequences, exacerbated by the lack of university procedures for such approvals. Simultaneously, since invitations could legitimately be distributed via other avenues, such approval was superfluous. We recommend the HREC's blanket requirement for institutional approval instead be considered on a case-by-case basis depending on the risk of the research, and perhaps waived for low-risk research where participants are able to provide informed consent, and that universities establish processes to deal with requests from external researchers. © The Author(s) 2022