Our commitment to quality research

St Vincent’s Private Hospitals are at the forefront of research, clinical education and training in the private health sector. We’re committed to quality research in the areas of acute and chronic care, innovative healthcare delivery, translational research, and vulnerable communities.

We draw on the expertise of our people and form collaborative research partnerships with experts who share our vision and values. Like us, our partners believe in holistic care informed by the latest evidence, and they continuously strive to improve and ensure best practice.

Our partners

St Vincent’s Private Hospitals work in partnership with several universities and research institutes, where many of our specialists are actively involved in clinical hospital research. This is part of our continued commitment to expand the evidence base in healthcare. 

We also have access to a number of grants from funding bodies including, but not limited to:

• The St Vincent's Curran Foundation
• St Vincent's Clinic Foundation
• The National Health and Medical Research Foundation
• The Heart Foundation
• Australian Research Council
• Medical Research Future Fund

Our partnerships and funding grants provide significant support for both staff and infrastructure costs. They have enabled our research profile and programs to grow considerably over the years.

Research application process

We welcome applications to conduct research at, or in collaboration with, St Vincent’s Private Hospitals. 

The first step is to make an application to our research committee to consider whether the proposed project is appropriate for the hospital. The application is then considered by the research committee which meets on the first Tuesday of each month. 

Possible outcomes:

• The committee may approve the project at this meeting if it is a simple quality assurance (QA) project.
• The project is identified as needing ethics approval and you will be notified to submit the project to the Human Research and Ethics Committee (HREC).
• The project is identified as already having ethics approval for other sites and you will be notified to seek an extension to the existing ethics approval to include St Vincent's Private Hospitals.
• The project is rejected as not being appropriate for the hospital.

Once approval from the HREC is received, the project comes back to the research committee for sign off. The application then finally goes for approval by the hospital executive.

Please note that the application to the hospital is not an ethics application.

Fees

Fees will apply when you undertake a commercially sponsored trial and service charges are applied to all trials. Principal investigators of the trials are also required to submit an annual report.

For more information regarding commercially sponsored trials, please contact us.

Human Research Ethics Committee

Human research is research conducted with or about people, or their data or tissue. St Vincent’s Health Australia understands the vital role that research plays in improving health outcomes across the service. Supporting research initiatives is part of the organisational strategic plan to achieve exceptional care.

It’s a requirement for institutions like St Vincent’s to have a process in place for the ethical and governance review of human research. All research projects being conducted at, or recruiting participants from St Vincent’s Health Australia facilities, require ethics approval by the St Vincent’s Health and Aged Care Human Research Ethics Committee (SVHAC HREC).

The SVHAC HREC is registered with the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) (NHMRC Registration No: EC00324). It is constituted in accordance with the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research 2007.

Being part of a Catholic health and aged care organisation, it’s also required that all research submissions comply with the Code of Ethical Standards For Catholic Health and Aged Care Services in Australia – Catholic Health Australia (cha.org.au).

How to lodge a research submission

HREC staff have extensive experience preparing and reviewing submissions to the SVHAC HREC, and are able to provide advice and assistance with submissions to the committee, as well as site-specific applications for governance review. 

We encourage all researchers wishing to undertake projects involving humans across the network to contact the SVHAC HREC Research Ethics and Governance Officer at svhac.hrec@svha.org.au

The SVHAC HREC Research Ethics and Governance Officer will help you determine the specific documentation required for your research project, all of which will need to be submitted by email. Some important resources are listed below.

Once the submission has been received, it will be reviewed and categorised as either low/negligible risk or greater-than-low risk. Low/negligible risk research may qualify for expedited review outside of the scheduled HREC meeting times. Any research that is determined to be more than low risk will require full ethics review. The SVHAC HREC conducts full ethics reviews at its bi-monthly meetings. 

Please contact us to find out more about HREC submissions and meeting dates for 2020/2021.

Complaints procedure

The SVHAC HREC is committed to fulfilling Section 5.6 of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research and ensuring that research is conducted according to the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research by ensuring that all complaints are handled appropriately. 

All complaints will be handled promptly with due sensitivity and in recognition of principles of natural justice. The SVHAC HREC will efficiently, effectively and ethically deal with complaints made to the HREC irrespective of the source or nature of the complaint.

Research participants, their families and other concerned parties have the right to communicate their concerns about any aspect of the services provided and are encouraged to do so. To facilitate this process, the HREC will ensure that all information sheets for research participants contain the contact information for the HREC Chair:

St Vincent’s Health & Aged Care Human Research Ethics Committee

Phone: (07) 3435  1615 

What to do if you have a complaint

In the first instance, you can contact the researcher directly to resolve your concerns. If for any reason you don’t feel comfortable talking with the researcher, or if you’re not satisfied with their response, please contact the Research Ethics and Governance Officer by email at svhac.hrec@svha.org.au