Our Attitude

The General Attitude of the Research Ethics Committee

In line with international ethics standards for health research as well as the commitment of the University of Pretoria to ensuring ethically sound research, the Research Ethics Committee like to highlight the following points that are pertinent to us fulfilling our role diligently and accountably: 

1.     The Research Ethics Committee upholds the principle that the primary responsibility for ethically sound research practice resides with researchers.
 

2.     The role of the Research Ethics Committee is to support and guide researchers towards better/best ethical research practice. The Research Ethics Committee is in this way a resource in the Faculty of Health Sciences for researchers.

3.     We approach the ethical review of proposals in a collaborative spirit in order to arrive at decision making that involves the researchers.

4.      The main purpose of questions or queries from members of the Research Ethics Committee is to clarify or better understand researchers’ intentions in order to assist us working together with researchers towards solutions.

5.     The comments made and questions asked by any one member of the Research Ethics Committee are important to the deliberations of the Committee as a whole.