Integrated Research Application System (IRAS): an introduction

If you are planning to conduct health or social care research in the UK, you will need to be familiar with IRAS. The Integrated Research Application System is a web-based platform, accessed at myresearchproject.org.uk, through which researchers submit applications to relevant regulatory and ethics bodies. Rather than completing a separate form for each reviewing organisation, IRAS allows a single application to be shared across multiple bodies with appropriate filtering to remove irrelevant sections.

Before IRAS existed in its current form, researchers running multi-body studies faced genuinely separate application processes for each reviewing organisation, often repeating the same information in slightly different formats for each one. The consolidation IRAS provides is easy to take for granted now, but it removed a real source of duplicated effort and inconsistency between parallel submissions.

Who uses IRAS

IRAS is used by:

• Researchers applying for ethical review or regulatory permissions
• Committees and bodies responsible for reviewing and authorising research
• Applicants for research tissue bank or database approval

Key features

Single Integrated Application Form. The application is completed once and shared with the relevant reviewing bodies. This removes duplication and significantly reduces the risk of inconsistencies appearing across what would otherwise be separate submissions.

Modular structure. A Project Filter at the start of the process tailors the application to your specific study type, stripping out sections that are not relevant. Research design varies enormously, and IRAS reflects that by avoiding a one-size-fits-all approach.

Collaborative access. Multiple users can work on and review an application simultaneously, with defined roles for research team members, principal investigators, and reviewing bodies.

Version control. All document versions are tracked within the system, supporting the transparency and accountability requirements of ICH-GCP.

Ethics committee submissions. IRAS handles direct submissions to Research Ethics Committees and includes specific sections for participant involvement and ethical considerations.

How long does review take?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions, and the honest answer is: it depends, though there's now genuine published data behind that answer rather than just anecdote. Research Ethics Committee review has a statutory maximum of 60 days from a valid application being received to an outcome being shared. The HRA's own published performance figures show actual review times running well inside that ceiling: commercially sponsored research averaged 29 days and non-commercially sponsored research averaged 28 days in the most recent reporting year, both notably faster than pre-pandemic norms. That's the baseline to plan around for a straightforward REC review specifically. It doesn't capture every approval a given study might need, and that's where the real variation still lives.

A few things have a consistent impact on timelines:

• Type of review needed: some studies require input from multiple bodies (HRA, GTAC, CAG, and others) and each adds time
• Study complexity: more sites, more languages, more interventions, and more institutions each add coordination overhead
• Committee scheduling: many committee members serve on a voluntary basis alongside other commitments. Meeting availability is not always predictable
• Application completeness: committees regularly come back with queries. A complete, well-organised application produces fewer questions and fewer rounds of clarification, and each round of a request for further information pauses the statutory clock until you respond
• NHS trust involvement: if local NHS trusts are involved in any capacity, their sign-off is often one of the slower elements of the process

What this means for planning

If a straightforward, single-site REC review is genuinely tracking at under 30 days on average, that's a reasonable planning assumption for the ethics review component specifically. But it's only one piece of a wider approvals picture that can include HRA Approval, local NHS trust capacity and capability sign-off, and potentially other bodies depending on the nature of the research. Budgeting timeline based only on the fastest-moving component is a common and avoidable planning mistake.

The single most effective way to shorten the overall timeline is still to submit a thorough, clear, and internally consistent application the first time. Ambiguity leads to queries, and every query resets part of the clock you were counting on.

It's also worth treating the first IRAS application on a new study as a document worth investing real time in, rather than something to complete quickly and revise later through the query process. Teams that get the initial submission right consistently report faster overall approval, not because reviewers are being lenient, but because there's genuinely less back-and-forth to resolve. The time saved rarely shows up as a single dramatic difference; it shows up as several small delays that simply never happen.