Research Governance

Ethics approval is essential for protecting the rights, safety and welfare of research participants, and ensuring research is conducted in ethical and scientifically sound ways.

Research governance review and authorisation processes are separate from ethics approval. While ethics approval focuses on the well-being of participants, governance authorisation is much broader and focuses on the responsibilities and risks to the institution leading or participating in a research study. This includes the protection of research participants, the quality of research, privacy and confidentiality, resource use and management, legal and regulatory matters, risk management, and monitoring arrangements.

In NSW, separate research governance authorisation is needed for each institution involved in a research project – because each institution is different. For multi-site studies, researchers often face complex, time-consuming and inconsistent governance application and review processes.

We work with ethics and governance teams across our Partnership to align review processes, streamline site access and produce resources to make it easier for researchers to navigate approvals across multiple locations.