Current Sections: Ethics >> Ethics OverviewAccredited health and disability and institutional ethics committees conduct ethics review of applications received by the HRC.
Accreditation is a formal process in which the Health Research Council Ethics Committee (HRCEC) reviews and monitors an ethics committee. For information on accreditation see HRC Guidelines for Ethics Committee Accreditation PDF 207KB
The Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Act 2001 requires that, for the purposes of coverage of participants in a clinical trial who sustain injury, all clinical trials must receive ethical approval from an ethics committee accredited by either the HRC or the Director-General of Health.
Additionally, access to data held by the New Zealand Health Information Service database requires that an accredited ethics committee review and approve the health research protocol and data access provisions before data may be released. A research proposal which involves both human and animal subjects will require separate approvals from both human and animal ethics committees.
As a general guide, research originating in a tertiary educational institution will be reviewed by an ethics committee of the institution, if that committee is accredited by the HRCEC to review HRC funding applications. Particular types of researcher proposals received by an accredited Institutional Ethics Committee should be referred to a Health and Disability Ethics Committee. If the committee is not accredited then the research proposal must be reviewed by another committee that is accredited by the HRCEC: see HRC Guidelines for an Accredited Institutional Ethics Committee to refer Research Studies to a Health and Disability Ethics Committee (May 2002) PDF 61KB.
Health and Disability Ethics Committees
Institutional Ethics Committees
Other New Zealand Ethics Committees
Other New Zealand Ethics Committees
Annual Reporting Procedures of Accredited Ethics Committees
The HRCEC has revised its reaccreditation and Annual Reporting procedures to simplify and streamline the process for ethics committees. The revised process merges the Annual Reporting and reaccreditation requirements into one annual template, the ‘Ethics Committee Assessment Form' (ECAF). The ECAF contains both ‘Annual Reporting questions' and ‘accrediting questions'. The former questions allow the HRCEC to monitor the activity and functioning of the committee as well as address any issues which arise out of the ethical review process. The accrediting questions are primarily questions of process and procedure and are clearly marked in the ECAF.
In addition to the ECAF, on reaccreditation years (a maximum of three calendar years from accreditation) the ethics committees will be asked to complete a brief ‘Reaccreditation Summary Report'. This report summarises the activity of the committee over the past three years, as well asks the committee to respond to some targeted issues identified by the HRCEC.
Ethics Committee Assessment Form
Reaccreditation Summary Report
Last Updated : 13 January 2010 11:26:22.
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