


Hong Kong Principles
The publication of the Hong Kong Principles comes at a time when there has never been more scrutiny of research. In this pandemic, the importance of science has been reinforced time and time again, but the importance of efforts to enhance reproducibility and transparency in research has also come to the fore. What the Hong Kong Principles do is provide a framework whereby research practices that strengthen integrity in research – a core component of reproducibility and trustworthiness – can be recognised, supported and rewarded.

Updated checklist for HDR Supervisors
Back in May, we published a resource for supervisors of postgraduate research students to assist with evaluating whether a research

Worried your researchers might not be treating human research ethics as a core component of good research practice? Concerned they are not seeing it as their responsibility?
All of us might be part of the problem. Dr Gary Allen AHRECS Senior Consultant Consider a hypothetical problem: You

When Research is the treatment: why the research/clinical care divide doesn’t always work
Nik Zeps AHRECS Consultant Health services are often operated by people who strive to improve the way they deliver care.

How we interpret the words ‘proportional review’
Dr Gary Allen AHRECS Senior Consultant Over the last decade, AHRECS has worked with institutions of various types, size and

A checklist to assist a supervisor to check a candidate’s research ethics review application
“Regulations don’t solve things. Supervision solves things” Wilbur Ross 2015 Dr Gary Allen, Prof. Colin Thomson AM and Prof Mark

COVID 19, human research and human research ethics review
Prof. Colin Thomson AM AHRECS Senior Consultant We at AHRECS, like all our friends, colleagues and clients, are becoming more

A users perspective on the ethics application process in Australia-room for improvement
Suat Chin Ng. MBBS, BMedSc, FRACS. Department of Surgery, Eastern Health, Melbourne, Australia. Wei Ming Ong MBBS Department of Surgery,
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Featured posts

A rose by any other name….?
As both a researcher and a research administrator in healthcare, one of the more vexing issues that I have to deal with on an almost daily basis is how to manage what are termed quality assurance, quality improvement and audit activities. In its 2014 publication entitled “Ethical Considerations in Quality Assurance and Evaluation Activities”, the NHMRC (NHMRC QA guidance) suggests that these can be loosely gathered together under an umbrella term of Quality Assurance (QA) and/or evaluation. I believe this construct is wrong and reinforces a longstanding approach to ethics review that relies on the category of an investigative activity to determine the level of review that is used. This approach is problematic and leads to some significant unintended consequences.

If you build it, they will come- 2020 Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) Training Conference (online) 18-20 Nov
Approximately 2.5 months from inception to execution, a veritable cornucopia of Australia’s thought leaders

Going video: A chance to change review practice?
In this post, Gary asks when it comes to research ethics review, whether something useful might come from social distancing

A new approach to the AHRECS site
In response to community feedback, from 1 November 2020, only papers, books and genuine resources will be posted to the AHRECS Resource Library; news and announcements will be posted to the feeds page. Searches of the site can include searches of the feed. Links to Research Ethics Monthly editions will also be posted to the feeds page. Please bear with us as we move all existing news items over to the feed. Eventually, this approach will make it easier to distinguish between research outputs and news items about human research ethics and research integrity.