About us
The Royal Childrens Hospital (RCH) supports and encourages research, quality improvement & clinical audit activities involving children. All research conducted on the RCH campus must be approved by the RCH Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) before it can commence.
The RCH HREC is constituted and operates in accordance with the NHMRC National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans (2007).
The RCH HRECs primary objectives are:
- To assess the ethical principles associated with the conduct of research in humans and to protect the welfare and rights of participants in research, and
- To facilitate research that is or will be of benefit to the researchers community or to humankind.
The RCH Ethics and Research Department is responsible for managing and facilitating the ethical review process for the campus. This involves co-ordinating scientific & ethical review of research. In addition, the department is responsible for research monitoring, research management including meeting legislative and regulatory requirements, policy development, the provision of researcher support and advice, and risk management.
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RCH HREC Review Process Summary (flow diagram)
- HREC Membership
What's New
Electronic Review
Research Development & Ethics has been taking steps to move to an electronic review and approval process. From now on ALL submissions must be made in electronic format to rch.ethics@rch.org.au; however in some cases 1 hard copy is still required for original signatures. The RDE website has been updated with this new information and it is essential you continue to use the most recent forms and instructions directly from the website. When submitting your electronic documents please ensure the files are named correclty, more information on document naming here.
Archiving of Research Records
The Ethics Office will now faciltiate off-site archiving of research records for researchers. For full details and forms please refer to the Archiving page.
Please note that due to the move to the new hospital archiving will not be available from the 21st November until 9th December inclusive.
Researchers must make an appointment when delivering boxes to the Ethics Office for archiving.
Research Development & Ethics Newsletter
In order to keep campus researchers up to date with the latest changes in multicentre ethical review, research policies & procedures, opportunities for research development & training and other relevant campus human research news, the new Research Development & Ethics office have started a quarterly newsletter.
Research Training
Nucleus Network is offering free research training to all campus staff. Training will be offered over 5 different modules (1-2 hours) in 2011: Dates & Session Details
The last Module is on Data, Tissue Banking & Radiation (date to be advised) in the Vernon Collins Lecture Theatre.
Campus Research Reports
