Skip to content

ACN - 101321555 | ABN - 39101321555

Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services Pty Ltd (AHRECS)

AHRECS icon
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Consultants
    • Services
  • Previous Projects
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Feeds
  • Contact Us
  • More
    • Request a Quote
    • Susbcribe to REM
    • Subscribe to VIP
Menu
  • Home
  • About Us
    • Consultants
    • Services
  • Previous Projects
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • Feeds
  • Contact Us
  • More
    • Request a Quote
    • Susbcribe to REM
    • Subscribe to VIP
Exclude terms...
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
AHRECS
Analysis
Animal ethics
Animal Ethics Committee
Animal handling
Animal housing
Animal Research Ethics
Animal Welfare
ANZCCART
Artificial Intelligence
Arts
Australia
Authorship
Belief
Beneficence
Big data
Big data
Biobank
Bioethics
Biomedical
Biospecimens
Breaches
Cartoon/Funny
Case studies
Clinical trial
Collaborative research
Conflicts of interest
Consent
Controversy/Scandal
Controversy/Scandal
Creative
Culture
Data management
Database
Dual-use
Essential Reading
Ethical review
Ethnography
Euthanasia
Evaluative practice/quality assurance
Even though i
First People
Fraud
Gender
Genetics
Get off Gary Play man of the dog
Good practice
Guidance
Honesty
HREC
Human research ethics
Humanities
Institutional responsibilities
International
Journal
Justice
Links
Media
Medical research
Merit and integrity
Methodology
Monitoring
New Zealand
News
Online research
Peer review
Performance
Primary materials
Principles
Privacy
Protection for participants
Psychology
Publication ethics
Questionable Publishers
Research ethics committees
Research integrity
Research Misconduct
Research results
Researcher responsibilities
Resources
Respect for persons
Sample paperwork
sd
se
Serious Adverse Event
Social Science
SoTL
Standards
Supervision
Training
Vulnerability
x
Young people
Exclude news

Sort by

Animal Ethics Biosafety Human Research Ethics Research Integrity

Research Ethics Monthly

ISSN 2206-2483

  • Home
  • >
  • Consent
The words, "RESEARCH ETHICS" with an empty pointed list on a notepad surrounded by circular tokens individual letters on each one.

Friend or foe? Building better relationships between HRECs and researchers

Dr Gary Allen February 2, 2023 No Comments
Read More
A ceramic pink Piggy bank money concept on dark blue background, stuffed with Australian cash, and female hand take one hundred dollar note.

HREC decision-making about social research with children: the influence of payment, risk and method

April 21, 2022 No Comments

In her latest thought-provoking post Stephanie Taplin reflects on social research with children/young adults and the impact of offering them incentives in the form of payments.

These matters have been controversial for research ethics committee and resulted in a block of items in the review feedback from the reviewing committee/s.

Despite the authority provided by the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (NHMRC, 2007, updated 2018) HRECs can be nervous about approving such research with incentives.

Despite this difficulty for reviewers, incentives in the form of payments definitely increases the chances that a young person will respond to a recruitment strategy.

Stephanie’s work has highlighted the degree to which a review body may be more comfortable with the offer of a chance to win and an incentive in a prize draw, at values over ten times as high as the direct incentive payment.

Another area of tension between the preferences of review body and young people is the difference between face-to-face interviews and anonymous questionnaires.

In this post Stephanie reflects on why researchers should engage with HRECs on these matters, rather than choose a path most likely to be accepted immediately by a committee.

Read More
Scrabble tiles spelling out the word "CONSENT"

Think of, and treat, consent as a powerful and complex verb, not a strictly defined and constrained noun

November 29, 2021 No Comments

The notion of consent and the expectation researchers will seek the prior consent of participants has a long history in human research ethics.

It has been a feature of many of the most infamous ethical Breakers commerce stamps and scandals.

Consequently, it has become a baked in feature of most of the guidelines on human research ethics.

But is that a good thing?

The typical approach to consent in human research doesn’t really work for a number of circumstances, research designs or potential how to participant pools.

Long strict guidelines can compound the error and can risk alienating researchers.

A more nuanced approach that provides guidance on necessary features of consent material can be more helpful than template consent materials.

This is exactly the kind of approach that this called for by the National Statement in Australia

Read More
Error of judgment! Handwritten message on a white background.

Unnatural justice: Public allegations could cause significant harm to vital clinical trial activity

October 25, 2021 No Comments

In this thought-provoking post, Nik Zeps (a consultant with AHRECS and a partner at Chrysalis) discusses the serious harm (in terms of reputation and career, as well as lost useful lines of inquiry) when there are complaints that allege ethical problems with clinical research.

These relate to situations where the clinical research is evaluating different kinds of intervention, where the evidence for the ‘accepted’ treatment might not be clear.

A misunderstanding of such research designs and a visceral reaction to apparent breaches aren’t helpful.

When such allegations are made, the researchers are rarely afforded an opportunity to respond and explain. If they were, one assumes that the manner could be easily cleared up.

We are embarrassed to admit in our own reporting of the cited case we really didn’t grasp the realities of what occurred or called out the very emotive reaction.

Read More
Looking through a wire fence of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp

Why university research ethics committees are vital

March 13, 2021 No Comments

In this post Daniel Sokol writes about a troubling research integrity/human research ethics case that relates to Poland, the UK and Australia.

Daniel Sokol 

When I sat on the Ministry of Defence’s Research Ethics Committee, some research projects were potentially dangerous.  The risks of testing a new piece of military diving equipment, for example, are obvious.  If it malfunctions, the volunteer could drown or suffer brain damage.  The risks of historical research can be more subtle but they are nonetheless real, as shown by a recent case involving the University of Warwick.

Dr Anna Hájková, an associate professor of modern continental European history, researches the queer history of the Holocaust.  She claimed that a Jewish prisoner may have engaged in a lesbian sexual relationship with a Nazi guard in Hamburg in 1944.

After the war, the prisoner worked as an actress and emigrated from…

Read More
Graphic of camera observation of the community

Should we accept funding for facial recognition research, and other dilemmas?

January 26, 2021 No Comments

Gary Allen, Mark Israel and Colin Thomson|
PEER REVIEWED

In the 1980s and 1990s, many research institutions made the principled and commendable decision not to accept funding from the tobacco industry.

This reflected the recognition of the awful health impacts of tobacco use and the degree to which the industry was muddying the waters of public debate with academic and clinical research questioning the veracity of the overwhelming body of evidence that clearly showed the dire dangers of activity such as smoking. While we continue to be shocked by cases such those like the research of Hans J Eysenck (and this), for the main it is accepted that receiving funding from the tobacco industry is not in the public’s best interest.

Read More
A woman completing a form on a laptop

Can I use your answers anyway?

March 30, 2020 No Comments

Dr Gary Allen AHRECS Senior Consultant Many national frameworks for human research ethics, such as the National Statement (2007 updated

Read More
Figure looking at a poster

Plain English communications and the PICF – and beyond

March 6, 2020 No Comments

Bob Milstein See below For many of us, preparing the Participant Information and Consent Form (PICF) for a research project

Read More

Advances in Medicine often require innovation in ethical thinking too

December 22, 2019 No Comments

Nik Zeps and Tanya Symons AHRECS Consultant Breakthroughs in medicine often highlight the existing limitations of the frameworks established to

Read More
Previous Page1 Page2 Page3 … Page6 Next

Categories

AHRECS Admin
17
Animal Ethics
5
Global Ethics
1
Human Research Ethics
168
Research Integrity
59
Services
31
Uncategorized
2

Featured posts

The word "Translation" highlighted by a neon coloured highlighter pen

Tongue in Cheek

March 22, 2021 No Comments

Farida Fozdar responds and reflects upon the February 2021 post by Gary Allen and Mark Israel.

Farida Fozdar

The Tower of Babel (Allen and Israel, 2021) is a compelling image when considering issues to do with translation and interpreting and the ethics of social research. Even when we speak the same language, we may not be ‘speaking the same language’, so to speak (excuse the triple metaphor). Talking past each other occurs in many ways but, in communicating the clear purpose and potential risks of one’s research, clarity is vital. Here, I outline a few issues from personal research experience, arguing that the communities themselves may be best placed to identify ethics issues and solutions to translation and interpreting dilemmas.

When working with those from a language different from that of the researchers, it may be the case that the idea of research is not well understood in the culture of origin…

A diverse group of positive people

Element Zero: What’s missing from the National Statement to support Consumer and Community Involvement in health research?

April 28, 2021 No Comments

In this great post, Mark, Deborah and Ciara discuss a useful new element for the National Statement that relates to genuine involvement, input and participation for consumers/community members.

Mark Israel, Deborah Hersh and Ciara Shiggins

Advocates in health research of Consumer and Community Involvement – a concept better known in the United Kingdom as Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) – argue that it offers a way of building knowledge that incorporates the experiences and perspectives of a range of stakeholders, including patients and members of the public. Such involvement can improve the experience for research participants, enhance the process of informed consent, aid research impact and dissemination. It might also avoid the waste of resources on findings that have little relevance to end users or that cannot be implemented…

Institutional approaches to evaluative practice

March 18, 2019 No Comments

Gary Allen, Mark Israel and Colin Thomson In 2001, the NHMRC published its policy

Sprinting to the start line: concerns with expedited ethics review

August 25, 2015 2 Comments

Allow me to start with a short story. A recent conversation I had with

Subscribe to newsletter

The Research Ethics Monthly is a free monthly publication about human research ethics and research integrity. It is emailed to our subscribers generally towards the end of every month.

  • Enter the answer as a word
  • Hidden
    This field is hidden and only used for import to Mailchimp
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Related Links

  • Comment Rules
  • Complaints against the Research Ethics Monthly
  • Request a Take Down
  • Submission guidelines
  • About the Research Ethics Monthly
  • About Subscribing to the Research Ethics Monthly

Research Ethics Monthly

  • November/December 2022
  • September/October 2022
  • August 2022
  • April/May 2022
  • January/February/March 2022
  • November/December 2021
  • September/October 2021
  • August 2021
  • June 2021
  • April/May 2021
Load More

Research Ethics Monthly Receive copies of the Research Ethics Monthly directly
by email. We will never spam you.

  • Enter the answer as a word
  • Hidden
    This field is hidden and only used for import to Mailchimp
  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
  • Home
  • Services
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Services
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Company
  • Terms Of Use
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • Company
  • Terms Of Use
  • Copyright
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map
  • Site Map

Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services Pty Ltd (AHRECS)

Facebook-f Twitter Linkedin-in