Inria COERLE applications

What is the Inria COERLE?

Before conducting any experimental work that directly or indirectly involves human participants, you need to get permission by Inria's equivalent of an institutional review board (IRB), called the COERLE. This application process checks both the ethical aspects of your planned work as well as data protection and other legal rules. Only after you received permission from the COERLE are you allowed to start your work. For more information see the COERLE's website and the COERLE's page on Numin.

Generally, in addition to the national COERLE committee which meets about once per month, there are also local scientific COERLE correspondents (CLC-Ss)—one per Inria center (see the list below)—which are your direct contact in case of questions. In addition, these CLC-Ss also help you when you enter a COERLE application and provide you with feedback, before you formally submit the application, as described below.

When precisely do I need to do an COERLE (ethics) application?

[todo: fill in this information: link to the decision by the Inria CEO that describes which research requires a COERLE decision, need to get an English translation]

How to approach an COERLE application?

  • The general application process is described on Numin. Below we list the steps that need to happen in some more detail.
  • You start by entering (but not submitting!) a COERLE application (Déposer une saisine) in the SI Coerle system. This application contains questions about both the ethical aspects of your planned work as well on data protection (the European GDPR rules) and other legal rules. This application can be entered in French or in English. Please note that some CLC-Ss may have a language preference for English (see the list below). While you are certainly allowed to enter your application data in French, following a potential language preference of your CLC-S for English could speed up the application process. Please see the section below on useful information for further details.
  • Once you filled in all the required fields, please leave the application in "Draft" status and contact your CLC-S about your planned experiment and send them the link to your draft application (in the form of sending them an e-mail with the link https://sicoerle.inria.fr/saisine/show/123 that you received from the SI Coerle system).
  • Your CLC-S then reviews your draft application and provides you with feedback and ensures that you provided all needed information that is required for your application. You then work with the CLC-S to complete and finish your application. In addition, together with the CLC-S you figure out whether your application classifies as a fast-track application or a full application.
  • Once this process is complete, the CLC-S asks you to fully submit the application in the SI Coerle system. In the case the application classifies as a fast-track application, the CLC-S writes a report about the application to be confirmed by the chair of the COERLE commitee. This is expected to happen within about a week or two (outside of vacation times). In case the application does not classify as a fast-track case, the application is forwarded to the national COERLE committee and is discussed by them in their next meeting.
  • If you are experienced with COERLE applications and have completed a few of them successfully already, you should know what information is expected and to which level of detail. Then you can also feel free to directly submit your draft in the SI Coerle system. The CLC-S is then automatically notified of the submission, and will look at it to make the recommendation. If there is a need for clarification the CLC-S will return the application to you for further specification.
  • Once the application is approved by the CLC-S, the next step is that your team's REP (the leader of your Inria team) needs to approve it. So please talk to them to ensure that this happens, otherwise the application is stuck and is not processed any further. Only after being approved by the REP of your team the application can progress further in the COERLE process.
  • In addition to the ethical assessment described so far, there is also an independent legal assessment by the lawyers of your center (in particular with respect to GDPR compliance), coordinated by your Inria center's legal coordinator (responsable du Service des affaires juridiques; see the list below for contact information). [todo: does this happen automatically?]
  • Furthermore, you also need the data management aspects of your planned experiment to be confirmed, for more information please see the information on the GDPR below.

Useful information for the COERLE application

The role of the local scientific COERLE correspondent (CLC-S; correspondant local scientifique Coerle)

  • The CLC-S helps you with any questions you may have about your application and guides you through the process.
  • In addition, the CLC-S provides assessments for fast-track applications or gives a comment to the national COERLE committee.
  • Please see the list below of the current CLC-Ss, and contact the person responsible based on your Inria center.

List of local scientific COERLE correspondents (CLC-S)

Inria center name e-mail language preference
University of Bordeaux Pierre Dragicevic first_name.last_name@inria.fr n/a
University Grenoble Alpes Cédric Lauradoux first_name.last_name@inria.fr (ASCII only) n/a
University of Lille Thomas Pietrzak first_name.last_name@univ-lille.fr n/a
Lyon Jan-Michael Rye first_name.last_name@inria.fr n/a
Université de Lorraine/Nancy Lucca Hirschi first_name.last_name@inria.fr n/a
Paris Adrien Coulet first_name.last_name@inria.fr n/a
Rennes University Jacques Nicolas first_name.last_name@inria.fr n/a
Université Côte d’Azur/Sophia Antipolis Arnaud Legout first_name.last_name@inria.fr n/a
Saclay Tobias Isenberg first_name.last_name@inria.fr English
Chile n/a [todo: who to contact] n/a

[todo: link to this information elsewhere?]

Inria center name e-mail
University of Bordeaux [todo: who to contact]
University Grenoble Alpes [todo: who to contact]
University of Lille [todo: who to contact]
Lyon [todo: who to contact]
Université de Lorraine [todo: who to contact]
Paris [todo: who to contact]
Rennes University [todo: who to contact]
Université Côte d’Azur/Sophia Antipolis [todo: who to contact]
Saclay Sandrine Capelle first_name.last_name@inria.fr
Chile [todo: who to contact]

What to do if you want to change an existing COERLE application that has not yet been decided?

Please contact the chair of the COERLE by e-mail, she or he can change the status in the SI Coerle system. [question: can this task also be handled by the center's local legal correspondent?]

What to do if you want to change/amend an existing COERLE application that already has been approved?

This process is described in this document on Numin. In summary, these are the needed steps:

  • You need provide:
    • the link to the existing application (in the form of https://sicoerle.inria.fr/saisine/show/123),
    • reason for the extension (typically an extension of a thesis or project),
    • the new protocol: a confirmation of no changes or a description and justification of minor changes to the protocol you are proposing,
    • the names of any new participants (if any of them are permanent, their contribution needs to be indicated), and
    • any needed additional details about any changes that you are proposing.
  • You can contact your CLC-S by e-mail about these points if you have any questions.
  • Once complete, you need to create a single document with all the requested information in PDF format and send this document by e-mail to the chair of the COERLE, with a copy to your CLC-S.
  • The COERLE chair then assesses your information and makes the final decision about a potential extension. If positive, they will will issue an extension notice, attaching the elements of the request.

What to do if you need an urgent decision for an application?

[todo: to be filled in/specified]

If you answer "yes" to the question "Does the project involve personal data?" as you enter your applications, then the data protection officer of Inria (DPO) will receive a copy of the COERLE application at the same time as you submit it in the SiCoerle system, and they will contact you about any potential questions. This process is independent of the ethics considerations and happens separately from the COERLE process. If you have any questions you can consult Inria's guide for GDPR-related issues for research (can be accessed in French and in English; on Numin) and/or contact Inria's data protection officer.

Document version; mistakes or omissions in this document

This document was last changed in January 2026. If you happen to find mistakes in this document or you are missing any relevant information, please contact Tobias Isenberg (first_name.last_name@inria.fr) and ask him to address these points.