Forms eat time but apparently the peak agencies are on to it

Adrian Barnett petitioned parliament last year for an inquiry on improving research ethics and governance. “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,” the QUT biostatistician and president of the Statistical Society of Australia said (CMM July 3 2019).

But nothing doing – apparently, the feds think the National Health and Medical Research Council and Australian Research Council have the problem covered.