Annual Progress Reports

The NHMRC requires registered HRECs to monitor all approved projects including by the submission of a completed Annual Progress Report. The University takes its responsibilities in this regard very seriously. To help ensure compliance, and given the very large number of research projects requiring ethical clearance, the University has implemented a number of automatic checks and procedures. All investigators are expected to familiarise themselves with these procedures.

The Annual Progress Report form is mailed to all Chief Investigators whose projects are identified on the database as being current. In the case of a student being the Chief Investigator, the Principal Supervisor is sent the form. The form requires Researchers to answer questions in relation to the human participants involved with their project.

Return date for the completed form to the Ethics Officer is set at 30 March each year. Where the database records a nil response, a final reminder is sent to investigators, after confirmation from the Head of School/Department/Centre of the current contact details for the investigator.

Failure by the Researcher to comply with the completion of the Annual Progress Report by either the original date of 30 March, or the follow-up reminder, may result in the approving Committee releasing notice that the ethics clearance for the named project is suspended.

Suspension is not a disciplinary proceeding. It means that the University must stop the project until it can be sure that it is able to properly monitor the project as required by the NHMRC.

Suspension means that all work on the named project must stop pending submission of completed Annual Progress Reports and any new applications from the named Chief Investigator will not be reviewed.

Random Audits

As part of the ethical monitoring process at the University of Queensland a Researcher should anticipate at any time the possibility of a random audit by the approving Committee.

All current projects have the possibility of being selected for a random audit.

Audits are selected by member's consensus at a meeting, from a randomly selected set of current projects.

The audit confirms that the project is being conducted in accordance to its approval by asking questions of the research team, inspecting all consent documents and records and being guided through any physical experiments associated with the project.

Particular attention is paid to involvement of any collectivities that may be deemed to be 'vulnerable' by the nature of their age, mental and/or physical ability, confinement and/or race, religion or birth.

The Chairperson (or nominee) immediately advises the Researcher of the outcome of the audit. Official written advice is sent shortly after.

The Chairperson (or nominee) has the authority to immediately suspend continued work on the project should the audit show that the project is not complying with its original approval. Suspension will hold until the full membership of the approving committee has met and discussed the project and/or circumstances under question.

Each member of the audit completes a report form which is tabled at the next meeting of the full committee with copies being held on the project file.