People with disability are experts in their own lives through experience. Co-production is an approach that enables people with disability to work collaboratively with researchers to conceptualise, structure, design and implement research that addresses issues of importance to people with disability. 

The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2007 (updated 2018), which guides all human research conducted in Australia, recognises the importance of people with disability participating in research but does not explicitly address co-production. This means researchers are currently without clear guidance on how to articulate co-production in their research ethics applications, and ethics committees are similarly unsupported in how to assess the ethical implications of proposed co-production. 

This document has been developed to address these two issues. 

• Firstly, the content supports researchers in submitting applications for ethics approval for projects involving co-production.
• Secondly, it guides ethics committees in assessing the ethical implications of co-production in applications for ethics approval.