Ethics Review Recognition Policy

Provides a standard baseline of the ethics review process for research involving multiple jurisdictions

Research ethics review committees (RECs) review the ethical acceptability of research involving human participants and use of their biological samples and personal data. The growth of international collaborative, data-intensive, and population-based projects has led to duplicated efforts and potentially inconsistent ethics reviews of the same study across participating research sites. In order to establish a common baseline, the GA4GH Regulatory & Ethics Work Stream (REWS) has developed the Ethics Review Recognition Policy. This policy provides a framework of essential elements for improving mutual recognition among RECs. It helps national, local, and institutional regulators and policymakers, as well as international, regional, or national accreditation systems.

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Benefits

  • Provides best practices for recognising ethics reviews conducted by another country
  • Encourages the reduction of duplicative ethics reviews

Target users

Ethics review committees

Image summary: The Ethics Review and Recognition (ERR) Policy can help ethics review boards evaluate another institution’s ethics review process.
THEME
CATEGORY
TYPE
STATUS
Work Stream
LATEST VERSION
v2.0
Product Lead
  • Edward Dove
Staff Contact

Community resources

Dive deeper into this product! Recognizing the diversity of legal and ethical approaches around the world and being responsive to emerging issues, the Ethics Review Recognition Policy encourages the reduction of duplicative ethics reviews through recognition approaches that enable ethics committees to accept the quality review of another ethics committee. The policy provides essential elements for multi-jurisdictional research involving health-related data collection, production, access, and re-use, with the intention of increasing efficiency and responsible data sharing. This policy is intended for those charged with drafting national, local, and institutional regulations and policies, as well as international, regional, or national accreditation systems.


Don't see your name? Get in touch:

  • Eva Bermejo-Sánchez
    Instituto de Salud Carlos III
  • Shu Hui Chen
    NIH National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
  • Edward Dove
    University of Edinburgh
  • Aida Beatriz Falcon de Vargas
    Hospital Vargas de Caracas
  • Amalia Issa
    McGill University / Université McGill
  • Dianne Nichol
    University of Tasmania
  • Pilar Nicolas
    Independent Contributor, University of the Basque Country
  • Vasiliki Rahimzadeh
    Baylor College of Medicine
  • Matthieu Schapranow
    Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering
  • Eva Winkler
    German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) / National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT)

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