A concern or a complaint about an investigator and/or the ethical conduct of a project can be raised by various parties, including investigators, research participants, human research ethics committees, HREC members, members of the public, funding bodies, University staff or students.
If you are a participant and have a complaint or concern about the research that you participated in, you can find contact details of the research team on the Participant Information Sheet. If you would prefer to discuss your complaint with someone that is not on the research team, contact the Ethics Coordinator: human.ethics@unqsq.edu.au.
The Ethics Coordinator will advise the HREC Chair of the complaint. The Chair will consider the complaint and will propose actions which may include:
- verifying that the research team have conducted themselves according to the approved protocol
- requesting the research team take steps to rectify the issue by, for example, deleting participant data or issuing an apology
- Recommend that a member from the Office of Research meet with the participant and/or the researcher
- Refer the matter to the Manager, Research Integrity and Ethics
- temporarily suspend the ethics approval
All actions will be conducted in a confidential manner.
Any complaints from participants or others that may affect the continued ethical acceptability of a project must be reported to the University as soon as possible to the Human Research Ethics Committee via the Ethics Coordinator email: human.ethics@unqsq.edu.au.
UniSQ takes every complaint seriously. Details regarding the process of receiving, investigating and addressing complaints can be found in the University's Research Code of Conduct Management of Potential Breaches Procedure.
Complaints about the conduct of the UniSQ HREC or reviewers
Concerns and Complaints regarding the UniSQ HREC or its review process should be made in writing via email to the Manager, Research Integrity and Ethics at researchintegrity@unisq.edu.au, to be provided to the UniSQ HREC Chair. Details for the grounds of the Complaint and the name and contact details of the Complainant should be included.
The UniSQ HREC Chair will consider Complaints and make a recommendation based on the evidence provided. If a resolution cannot be reached through communication between the Complainant and the HREC, the Office of Research may consider the complaint, seeking further advice internally or externally as appropriate.