Gary Allen

The Chairs of research ethics committees play a number of essential roles, included in these is setting the right tone for a meeting.  This includes showing respect and courtesy to all members (such as not speaking over them, being calm and respectful and avoiding language that may lead to bias in the review process or decision outcome).  The Chair helps to set and maintain the tone of the meetings.

The Chair can and should urge members to be clear and concise in their comments.  They should also encourage members away from technical language, acronyms or abbreviations, or where technical language is unavoidable, the terms should be carefully explained, so that all members can understand.  The principle is that the lay members of the committee should have sufficient clarity of understanding that they help to make decisions with confidence. The Chair’s role is key to this.

Good meeting procedure includes having a standard slot in the agenda where members update their current disclosure of interests, especially as it relates to the meeting agenda and the current work of the committee.

There should also be a slot in the agenda where the committee is provided with an update with regard to researcher professional development that has been conducted since the last meeting.  That spot in the agenda affords the Chair the opportunity to express that members should feel free to disclose conflicts whenever they become apparent during the course of the committee’s business.

During the review of applications, the Chair should encourage members to reference the national ethical standards and any relevant institutional policy.  For example, in Australia, Chairs should insist that members reference the core ethical principles described by Section 1 of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and then pivot to the Elements described by Chapter 3.1 of the National Statement.  This might be complemented by reference to specific provisions in the National Statement.  In this way, advice to researchers and review outcomes are clearly justifiable.

Members should be urged to be constructive in their feedback, with the goal of facilitating ethical and excellent research.   The feedback from the committee in response to an application should make it clear what the applicant will need to do to address the committee’s feedback.  The Chair’s summary and clarity is instrumental in supporting the committee to achieve this.

The Chair should have little patience for members who wish to go through by item every typographical, spelling or grammatical error in an application.  Such feedback can easily cause offence and really has little to do with ethics.  It is sufficient for the committee to note that there are errors in the application, recruitment material, consent material or data collection tools, and where these need to be pointed out to a researcher, the material can be provided to the secretary without discussion at the meeting.  An exception may be when there are sufficient errors to make the application appear sloppy, in which instance the Chair’s leadership both prior to the meeting and at the meeting is crucial to ensuring the ethics of the application are fairly reviewed, which may require an updated application to be submitted.

The services provided by AHRECS includes observing meetings and providing feedback to the committee Chair or the committee as a whole.  Our team includes experienced Chairs, Secretaries, Research Ethics Managers and both human and animal ethics committee members.  We also provide coaching for the committee and mentoring for Chairs and Secretaries.

We are also available to provide professional development for the committee, including in-person sessions, fishbowls, and video link in-meeting activities.

AHRECS has considerable experience in conducting desktop audits of institutional human research ethic arrangements (including policies, procedures, standard operating procedures and resource materials) and in producing a blueprint for constructive change at the institution.  This can be invaluable to Chairs to improve their practice and the work of their committee, including the conduct of research ethics review.

Contact us at enquiry@ahrecs.com to discuss how we might assist your institution.

This post may be cited as:
Allen, G. (03 November 2022) Setting the right tone.  Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/setting-the-right-tone/