The UnitingCare Queensland Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) is responsible for ensuring the ethical acceptability of research conducted by external researchers, or by staff of any UnitingCare Queensland community service, and for social research carried out in the acute care setting within UnitingCare Health which involves human participants, human tissue or personally identifiable records, and for the provision of advice to UnitingCare Queensland on related matters.
The Committee is governed by the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) in performing its responsibilities. Research undertaken within the UnitingCare Queensland service network must receive some level of review, irrespective of whether another HREC has previously reviewed and approved the research.
Research undertaken within UnitingCare Queensland must be consistent with the organisation’s strategic direction and be in keeping with areas of care and service delivery need. Further to this, the methodology of any project needs to be amenable to a service delivery context and be consistent with the National Statement (2007). For these reasons, UnitingCare Queensland believes it is important that the UnitingCare Queensland HREC reviews and approves all requests to undertake research.
For more information regarding ethics approval go to the UnitingCare Queensland website.