Senate

Subject: Report of the Ethical Advisory Committee 1998/99

Origin: Secretary to Ethical Advisory Committee

1. Terms of Reference

The terms of reference of the Ethical Advisory Committee are as follows:

to consider general ethical issues relating to the teaching and research of the University which involves investigations on human subjects
to devise and submit for approval by Senate and Council a University Code of Practice on investigations on human subjects, to keep the Code under review and to recommend such modifications as from time to time are deemed necessary
as a matter of routine in the case of physiological investigations and any other experiments which may interfere with normal human physiological function, to consider the ethical implications of individual proposals for investigations into human subjects and to advice whether these are acceptable
to be available to give advice to staff and students of the University who wish to undertake such investigations no the ethical considerations involved
to meet not less than twice a year and to report annually to Senate.

2. Business Conducted

Since the Committee’s last routine report the Committee has met on three occasions under the Chair Dr Robin Hooper, Department of Human Sciences. Clearance has been given for five generic protocols for human biological investigations and 29 research proposals for human biological investigations to proceed.

Dr Robin Hooper took over as Chair of the Committee and will continue to take this role throughout the next session. Wendy Clarke, Undergraduate Admissions Office, continued as Secretary. Dr Adrianne Hardman (PE, SS, RM) resigned from the Committee and was replaced by Dr Joanna Bowtell. Mandy Stirling (Human Sciences) took over as the student representative, and Natalie Walthrust represented the Students’ Union. Dr Ron Hinton (Education Department) retired at the end of the session after long and valuable service to the Committee.

The Committee has enjoyed a good relationship with investigators submitting their proposals for ethical consideration. Investigators have been willing to revise their proposals in accordance with the Committee’s recommendations thereby facilitating the ethical clearance procedure. During the course of this year the generic Health Screen was revised, and plans were made to revise and update all generic protocols for human biological investigations over the course of the next session.