Research Ethics and Governance applications
Changes taking place as part of the WA Health System Ethics Reform
The WA Health system currently has eight Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) and ethics administrative offices. These HRECs and their associated offices will be consolidated into one HREC, the WA Health Central HREC, which will be supported by a Central Office for Research Ethics (CORE). The move to the central model will be progressively integrated across the system and is anticipated to be complete by mid-2025.
Integration of Women and Newborn Health Service (WNHS)
Please be advised that as part of the WA Health system ethics reform (external site), the Women and Newborn Health Service Ethics Committee (WNHS EC) is no longer accepting new ethics applications for review. New ethics applications will be redirected to either the Child and Adolescent Health Service Human Research Ethics Committee (CAHS HREC) or WA Health Central HREC (external site) for review.
As of 28 October 2024, Monitoring submissions (amendments, safety reports, annual progress reports and site and project final reports) for projects previously approved by the WNHS EC should be submitted to the WA Health Central HREC for review.
For further information, please contact the Central Office for Research Ethics (CORE) at hrec@health.wa.gov.au or phone (08) 9222 4214.
For research projects to occur at KEMH, the project requires both HREC and Research Governance Office review and approval, and applications can be submitted to both review streams simultaneously. Research Governance applications are not affected by the reform and should continue to be submitted to the Research Governance Office at each site that is involved in the project.
For KEMH site authorisation to be granted, the researcher is required to submit a Research Governance application in RGS (external site), for review and recommendation. For more information regarding KEMH Research Governance applications, please contact ResearchGovernanceOffice.kemh@health.wa.gov.au
