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The Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services (AHRECS) team brings extensive experience and expertise to support your research ethics needs. We have collaborated with research ethics committees, regulatory bodies, and professional organisations across Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam, ensuring compliance with international standards, including US OHRPP and ORI requirements.
Our team combines a deep theoretical understanding with a practical knowledge of regulatory frameworks. With over 20 years of collective experience, our senior consultants excel in implementing best practices in research ethics training, systems, and reforms. By partnering with AHRECS, you gain access to trusted advisors who can help you navigate complex requirements, enhance your systems, and ensure ethical excellence in your research practices.
Latest blog entries
Research Ethics and the New Gene-editing Technology
Nik Zeps, Consultant, AHRECS Keywords: Ethical Review, International Guidelines, Gene editing technologies, It has now been over six months since He Jiankuiand his team used the CRISPR/CAS9 gene editing technique to introduce a gene alteration in twin girls (STAT). The revelation that he had performed this audacious experiment shocked the world and left people asking…
Is it something I said (or the way I said it)?
Dr Gary Allen, Senior Consultants AHRECS Prof. Mark Israel Prof. Colin Thomson AM . Reflecting on review feedback Feedback from the research ethics review of a project is often one of the first interactions between a researcher and a research ethics committee. It helps define, and can permanently tarnish, the relationship between an institution’s committee and research…
“Reminder about service options and an easy way to pay AHRECS,” we say… aware of how corporate sleazy that sounds
Dr Gary Allen, Senior Consultants AHRECS Prof. Mark Israel Prof. Colin Thomson AM . Just in time for the end of the financial year (though we know many research institutions budget around calendar year), AHRECS has the capacity to receive payments by credit card. We thought this a good time to remind you of those of our services…
Update on the new subscribers’ area
We are currently expecting the new service to go live prior to us sending the July 2019 edition of the Research Ethics Monthly. It is being built by some talented designers and coders we are excited to be working with. The service will be located at AHRECS.vip, will be far more easily browsed and used, with an…
We respect you… we just don’t need to hear from you anymore: Should the consumer and their community participate in research as partners instead of just being subjects?
By Dr Gary Allen| Senior Policy Officer, Office for Research Griffith University | Ambassador Council the Hopkins Centre| Ambassador MS Qld | Member Labor Enabled| Senior Consultant AHRECS Associate Professor Carolyn Ehrlich| the Hopkins Centre| Research fellow at Griffith University On behalf of the consumer inclusion in ethics research project, The Hopkins Centre, Griffith University Much…
Research Ethics Review as a Box-Ticking Exercise
Associate Professor Angela Romano | Faculty Research Ethics Adviser, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology My role as a university Research Ethics Advisor involves an interesting range of activities, although sadly there is less actual advising than I would like. As Faculty Research Ethics Advisor (FREA) for the Queensland University of Technology’s Creative…
The F-word, or how to fight fires in the research literature
Professor Jennifer Byrne | University of Sydney Medical School and Children's Hospital at Westmead At home, I am constantly fighting the F-word. Channelling my mother, I find myself saying things like ‘don’t use that word’, ‘not here’, ‘not in this house’. As you can probably gather, it’s a losing battle. Research has its own…
Proportional processes can sometimes be the answer to a few (apparently competing) problems
But they shouldn’t equate to abridged consideration Dr Gary Allen | AHRECS senior consultant | Profile Professor Mark Israel | AHRECS senior consultant | Profile Professor Colin Thomson AM | AHRECS senior consultant | Profile There are three things that we have consistently found when we have conducted desktop audits of human research ethics arrangements: Researchers believe…
Should you be worried about paying children to take part in research?
Associate Professor Stephanie Taplin, Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University The commentary below the article is by Virginia Morrow, Visiting Professor, University College London Decision-making about children’s participation in research requires consideration of factors such as the risk or sensitivity of the study, payments, study methods and the potential benefits for participants…
Smarter proportional research ethics review
Rushing toward a faster review decision should not mean relaxing standards or playing chicken with stricter central control Gary Allen, Mark Israel and Colin Thomson Too often, there is a danger that ‘expedited ethical review’ (a term not used in the National Statement since 1999) might equate to an approach that abridges the review process…
The need to seek institutional approval to survey staff – was this a misunderstanding of the purpose of Guideline 2.2.13 in the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research?
Katherine (Kate) Christian, Carolyn Johnstone, Jo-ann Larkins and Wendy Wright Federation University We have conducted a research project investigating the factors contributing to the satisfaction – or dissatisfaction – of early-career researchers (ECRs) from across Australia working in the sciences. A requirement of our ethics approval was a need to provide evidence from every…
Ethics, Security and Privacy – the Bermuda Triangle of data management?
Malcolm Wolski and Andrew Bowness Griffith University To manage sensitive research data appropriately, ethics, security and privacy requirements need to be considered. Researchers are traditionally familiar with ethics, but often have not considered the privacy and security pieces of the puzzle. Our reasons for making this statement are: IT products used in research change…
Should we Reframe Research Ethics as a Professional Ethics?
Dr Nathan Emmerich Research Fellow in Bioethics at ANUMS Despite the fact that one of the urtexts of bioethics—Beauchamp and Childress’ principles of biomedical ethics—offers a set of concepts that purport to apply to both research and medical practice it is nevertheless the case that we standardly contrast research ethics with professional ethics. The operating…
Empowering and enabling participation in human research: Reflections from two Queenslanders living with Multiple Sclerosis
Dr Gary Allen MS Qld Ambassador | AHRECS Senior Consultant | Member NS s4 review committee Natalie Walsh MS Qld Community Engagement Manager Participation in ethical human research often provides four positive opportunities for persons living with MS: (i) A welcome distraction from the sometimes-cruel realities of living with this progressive neurological condition. (ii) An…
Pondering on whether to submit your research output to a journal?
The significance of how we talk and think about the pachyderm elephant mammoth in the room. Dr Gary Allen AHRECS Senior Consultant The names we give things matter. The Bard may have been willing to allow a rose to stand in place for any noun, but he hadn’t encountered unscrupulous publishers. Thanks to Beall’s List,…
Fighting Fiction with Fiction: A novel approach to engaging the public in bioethics of medical research
Cathal O'Connell Centre Manager, BioFab3D, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne. About the laboratory discussed in this post (Video credit: Benjamin Sheen) To the surprise of its inventors, the cochlear implant was greeted with protest by some in the Deaf community in the 1980s and early 1990s. This well-known story underlines how important it is for developers…
Clergy service to HRECs: the useful paradox within secular governance of research involving human participants
Aviva Kipen, Union for Progressive Judaism and Progressive Judaism Victoria. In 2015, I earned a Doctor of Ministry Studies degree from the University of Divinity in Melbourne. The thesis, investigating how 13 Christian and Jewish clergy experienced HREC service in their pastoral care roles, arose from my own human research ethics committee and Victorian Biotechnologies…
The research use of online data/web 2.0 comments
Does it require research ethics review and specified consent? Dr Gary Allen AHRECS Senior Consultant The internet is a rich source of information for researchers. On the Web 2.0 we see extensive commentary on numerous life matters, which may be of interest to researchers in a wide range of (sub)disciplines. Research interest in these matters…
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