Securing MODREC Approval for Military Research: A Guide

How to… Get Ethics Approval to Interview British Military Personnel

If you want to do research that involves participants from the British Armed Forces or Ministry of Defence (MoD), it is important to get approval from the MoD’s Research Ethics Committee (MODREC) before you start your data collection.

Applying for MODREC approval might seem daunting at first. So in this blog I’m going to explain how we secured MODREC approval to interview military personnel and MoD staff for the project. My aim is to try and make this process clear as possible and to give you an idea of the timeframes that are involved in getting your MODREC application approved.

Step 1: Get to grips with the paperwork

When I joined the Powerful Perpetrators project back in May 2024, one of the first things I did was to familiarise myself with what exactly it was we needed to do to secure MODREC approval. I’d heard that it could take a fair bit of time, so I wanted to make sure that we got things moving as quickly as possible.

First of all, I read through Joint Service Publication no. 536 (JSP536), ‘Defence research involving human participants. Part 2: Guidance’. This document is an extensive guide to the different stages of the MODREC process, the forms you will need to fill out, and answers some of the key questions you might have early on (e.g. ‘what type of research needs MODREC approval?’). Also have a look at this gov.uk webpage: Applying for approval for MOD research involving humans – GOV.UK

Step 2: Find a ‘research sponsor’ and an ‘MoD authoriser’

The research sponsor has an important role in the application process; they are the person that takes legal responsibility for the project and acts as an additional point of contact through which concerns can be raised. One of the things that wasn’t exactly clear to me was who exactly could act as research sponsor for researchers that are external to the military. This is because the sponsor is not the same thing as the funder, a Head of Department, or a supportive member of the MoD or Armed Forces (the latter can be your MoD authoriser, more on that next). In the end, the University of Bristol’s Head of Research Governance acted as our sponsor through MODREC.

Because we are external researchers, it was also essential to find someone within the MoD or Armed Forces who would approve the project and show support for it throughout the MODREC process. The authoriser needs to be either a senior officer (OF5 – Captain/Colonel/Group Captain – or above) or a senior civil servant (B2/ grade 7 level or above). Finding someone willing to ‘sign off’ on your work can be tricky, it requires patience, networking, and working out who actually has the capacity (and the interest) to get involved with your study. I started trying to find an authoriser in October 2024. We ended up connecting with members of the ‘Raising our Standards’ team and met with them to discuss the project in December 2024. They were incredibly understanding and provided us with a letter of support that could be included in the MODREC application form.

Step 3: Fill out the application form

I would recommend emailing the MODREC secretariat to ask for the latest version of the application template (don’t lose time by filling out an older version that you might have found as a PDF somewhere online). We worked closely with our MoD authorisers to draft and refine earlier versions of the application form, and we are grateful to them for the time they gave up to help us with this (it is a long form!).

Step 4: Going through a Scientific Assessment Committee

Before you can go anywhere near MODREC, your application needs to be approved by a Scientific Assessment Committee (SAC). It was a relief to learn that the SAC doesn’t require a separate application form but uses the same one as MODREC. The SACs ensure that the study has been designed and planned properly. There are five different SACs, one for the Navy, the Army, the RAF, DSTL, and the Defence Academy (the contact details for each are at the bottom of this webpage: Ministry of Defence Research Ethics Committee – GOV.UK). If you are doing research on one service, then deciding which SAC to send your application to should be fairly easy. If, like us, your research looks at the Armed Forces as a whole it can be a bit more confusing. It is worth contacting the SACs, your MoD authorisers and/or the MODREC committee to work out where your application fits best. We ended up going through the Army SAC. We submitted our initial application in May 2025 and after a series of revisions and clarifications it was approved in September 2025.

Step 4: MODREC review

We submitted the SAC-approved application to MODREC in September 2025 and were invited to the October meeting. The meeting was online, and we were able to attend as a team. We were given a 15-minute slot. The committee itself is big, so expect to see quite a few faces on the screen. The committee’s questions focused on research design, analysis, and the different strands of the project (so pretty standard ethics committee questions).

After the meeting, they sent us a letter detailing the revisions we needed to make for the project to be approved. Initially, our application related to the retrospective access to sexual misconduct data and interviews with military personnel. The committee were supportive of the interview aspect of the project but required more information in relation to the misconduct data. As such, they suggested that we decouple these two elements and re-submit another application relating to the misconduct data. We are still working on this follow up application, but in the meantime MODREC gave us a ‘favourable opinion’ to do the interviews which we started in January 2026. We will need to complete a final report and send this to MODREC when we wrap up the project.

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Overall, the journey to get to MODREC has been (and continues to be) long, but well worth it! We are grateful for those who have engaged with our work so generously since we received MODREC approval for the interviews.

When you start planning a project that might involve participants from the military, it is worth factoring in the time it takes to find an MoD authoriser and to go through the SAC process; things like annual leave, team capacity, and responding to queries mean that it might take a little bit longer than you think. If you have any questions about our experience of MODREC then please do reach out to us!