The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research is intended for use by:
- any researcher conducting research with human participants
- any member of an ethics review body reviewing that research
- those involved in research governance
- potential research participants.
The National Statement is developed jointly by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), the Australian Research Council and Universities Australia.
Compliance with the National Statement is a prerequisite for receipt of NHMRC funding.
The National Statement is subject to ongoing review.
Current 2023 National Statement
The National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2023 has been published and is available in PDF format at:
The 2023 National Statement is effective from 1 January 2024.
Public consultation on the National Statement
Public consultation on Section 4 of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research will open soon.
National Statement 2007 (updated 2018)
The rescinded version of the National Statement is available in PDF format at:
Previous updates to the National Statement are described in the National Statement – Summary of Updates (see link to table below) with the most recent updates at the top.
- National Statement on ethical conduct in human research – summary of updates (available from the downloads section below)
It is the responsibility of all users of the National Statement, including HRECs, research offices and researchers, to ensure that the current version is being used in developing research proposals, making submissions for ethics review and undertaking ethics review that occurs on or after the date of release of any update.
Researchers, institutions and Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) are advised to use the NHMRC website to ensure that they are using the current version of the National Statement, and to check regularly for updates.
Institutions that provide a copy of the National Statement on their website are advised to provide a link to the current version of the document on the NHMRC website, or to update their webpages accordingly.
Archived and revoked versions of the National Statement are available for reference purposes (see National Statement Summary of Updates above).
Keeping up to date
To keep apprised of any forthcoming public consultations on proposed changes to the National Statement refer to NHMRC consultations. Public consultations are advertised in the NHMRC Tracker.
History
Australian activity in ethical review of human research began during the 1960s and was related closely to the federal funding of medical research. Through the passage of the Medical Research Endowment Fund Act 1937, the Commonwealth Parliament had established the Medical Research Endowment Fund. Responsibility for the fund was vested in the Minister for Health, who could determine its use for medical research and in the training of persons in medical research, acting on the advice of the National Health and Medical Research Council, constituted in 1936.
In 1966, the Council issued the Statement on Human Experimentation that expressly drew on the Helsinki Declaration. In 1972, the Council appointed the Ethics in Clinical Research Subcommittee to examine the need to revise the Statement. Their report recommended peer group assessment of experiments involving human subjects and, in 1976, Supplementary Note 1 was added to the Statement, to make the requirement for review by an institutional ethics committee (IEC) explicit. The opening paragraphs were also amended to indicate that the Statement was applicable to all human subject research, encompassing medical, social and behavioural research.
In October 1982, the Council established the Medical Research Ethics Committee to assist the Council by keeping under review and making recommendations to Council on ethical principles in human experimentation and to facilitate, keep under review and report to the Council on the work of IECs, and respond to questions raised by them.
In November 1985, the Council adopted a recommendation that any institution that conducts research on humans must conform to Supplementary Note 1 in order to be eligible to receive funds for research from the Council. The risk of ineligibility to receive Council funds was an effective inducement for institutions to establish IECs. By 1990, it was estimated that there were over 100 IECs throughout Australia and in 2005, there are more than 220. (IECs are now known as Human Research Ethics Committees.)
The National Health and Medical Research Council Act 1992 establishes the Role of the CEO whose functions include the issue of "guidelines for the conduct of medical research involving humans". These guidelines must be issued precisely as developed by the principal committee of Council known as the Australian Health Ethics Committee (AHEC).
In 1994, the Commonwealth Minister for Human Services and Health commissioned a review of the role and functioning of Institutional Ethics Committees. In March 1996, the report of that review recommended that the existing guidelines be reviewed. Between 1996 and July 1999, AHEC developed the guidelines that were contained in the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research involving Humans (1999) (National Statement), issued by the NHMRC and endorsed by major research and academic institutions.
The next revision of the National Statement was undertaken in 2005 and resulted in the release of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research, 2007 (available in Downloads section).
