Basic Responsibilities

The basic responsibility of an Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) is to ensure a competent review of all ethical aspects of the project proposals received by it in an objective manner. IECs should provide advice to the researchers on all aspects of the welfare and safety of the research participants after ensuring the scientific soundness of the proposed research through appropriate Scientific Review Committee. In institutions where this is lacking, the IEC may take up the dual responsibility of review of both the scientific content and ethical aspects of the proposal. It is advisable to have separate Committees for each, taking care that the scientific review precedes the scrutiny for ethical issues. The scientific evaluation should ensure technical appropriateness of the proposed study. The IECs should specify in writing the authority under which the Committee is established. Small institutions could form alliances with other IECs or approach registered IEC. Large institutions/Universities with a large number of proposals can have more than one suitably constituted IECs for different research areas for which a large number of research proposals are submitted. However, the institutional policy should be the same for all these IECs to safeguard the research participant's rights. The main IEC may review proposals submitted by undergraduate or post-graduate students or if necessary, a committee may be separately constituted for the purpose, which will review 1 Page proposals in the same manner as described above. The responsibilities of an IEC can be defined as follows:- To protect the dignity, rights and well being of the potential research participants. To ensure that universal ethical values and international scientific standards are expressed in terms of local community values and customs. To assist in the development and the education of a research community responsive to local health care requirements.