Our goals

Our office, Research Ethics and Governance (REG), supports research that improves the health and wellbeing of children, young people their families and communities. We oversee research that is conducted in or by the Melbourne Children’s Campus. The campus includes The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH), Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the University of Melbourne Department of Paediatrics. 

The two key goals of our department are to:

1. protect the safety, rights and autonomy of research participants
2. facilitate high quality research through supporting researchers. 
   

To help meet these goals, we:

• manage the ethical review of research projects
• manage the governance, namely the site specific approval, of research projects conducted on or by the Melbourne Children’s Campus
• give advice about research ethics
• assist with research management, including meeting legislative and regulatory requirements
• assist with the risk management of research projects
• provide plain language advice
• support policy development.

Ethics and governance 

All research conducted on or by the Melbourne Children’s campus requires:

1. ethical approval by a certified Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) and
2. governance authorisation provided by REG.
   

The RCH HREC complies with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2025. For more information about the HREC, please refer to its:

• Terms of Reference
  
• HREC membership
• Standard Operating Procedures 
  

Our networks

We are active in a number of networks, including:

• The Australian Paediatric Research Ethics and Governance (APREG) Network 
• The Melbourne Academic Centre for Health (MACH) Research Excellence (REx) Steering Committee