Adrian Barnett has had it with “unnecessary” research paperwork. He’s petitioning for a national inquiry

“Australian researchers are spending too much time on unnecessary ethics and governance forms,” says the president of the Statistical Society of Australia and QUT biostatistics researcher.

“Millions of dollars-worth of Australian health and medical researchers’ time is being wasted on: submitting the same forms to multiple review committees; or submitting forms for negligible risk research that should not need formal oversight. These unnecessary applications waste huge amounts of time and money, and are impeding health and medical research in Australia.”

Professor Barnett has a petition here calling for a, “a national inquiry to examine the entire system of ethics and governance approvals.”

Conveniently for anybody thinking about terms of reference, he also suggests what it should conclude; “We want national systems with standardised forms that are used by every state and territory health department.”