Mission impossible?

In 1999 the authors submitted to the local Health Research Ethics Committee (HREC) for approval a research proposal to investigate Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) policies and practices in Greater Sydney, Australia. The submission to the HREC followed previous successful submissions to the Scientific Advisory Committee, which is a sub-committee of the HREC and the IEC of the University of Western Sydney, Nepean. The local HREC refused to approve the proposal. In this paper we describe the study's background, its aims, expected outcomes and its design. We also describe the scientific and ethical review process to which the research proposal was subjected. Finally, we speculate upon the reasons the proposal's progress has been, in our view, inappropriately impeded. These illustrate with pressing irony precisely those issues the proposed research sought to explore and address.