Biomedical Research in Developing Countries - UNICRI

South African Research Ethics Training Initiative
SARETI
The South African Research Ethics Training Initiative is a consortium of University
Faculties that offers a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary, Africa-based education
and training programme in health research ethics. The partners to this initiative
include the University of KwalaZulu-Natal (School of Psychology), the University
of Pretoria (School of Medicine and School of Health Systems and Public Health),
and the US Bioethics Institute at the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School
of Public Health. Collaborations with other African Countries, the Pan-African
Bioethics Initiative (PABIN), the European Union, the USA and the UNAIDS
Collaborating Center on Ethics, Law and Human Rights ensure a global perspective
to its activities. The overall goal of the SARETI training programme is to strengthen
Africa’s institutional training capacity to achieve and support the building of African
capacity and leadership for the ethical review of health research.
SARETI offers a series of training courses and programmes, in order to provide
advanced, multi-disciplinary education in health research ethics to senior
professionals in Africa whose work impacts on health research ethics:
- A Master Degree Programme with funding for 14 sponsored and self-funded
trainees over a 4 year period;
- A Training Programme for self-funded Ethics Review Committee members
(ERCTP);
- Short course attendance for self-funded applicants.
The courses provide trainees with multi-disciplinary theoretical and practical
learning in research ethics in bio-medicine, public health, and the social and
behavioral sciences, as well as philosophy, bioethics, human rights, law, research
design and research methods. The aim of this approach is to provide trainees with
practical learning in terms of institutionalizing ethics review of health research and
skills in teaching health research ethics to others.
SARETI also offers a sub-specialization in the fields of public health ethics and ethics
in social sciences. Short courses aim to provide training for Ethics Review
Committee members in order to increase their capability.
A Support Programme offers continuous education for trainees in Africa-based
universities and attendance to relevant health research ethics meetings, in order to
foster institutional capacity to continuing health research ethics education,
development and research and to extend the impact of SARETI programmes by
facilitating networking of professionals in Africa. To this regard, SARETI funds one
of the Master trainees to present his/her work at the Global Bioethics Forum or
similar conference annually.
In October 2006, SARETI has organized the first Africa Health Research Ethics
Symposium (AHRES) in Dakar, Senegal, in collaboration with other African Ethics
organizations and with the support of the Wellcome Trust. Its major aim was to
bring together the graduates of the SARETI programme, to increase the impact and
networking potentials of the SARETI training programmes, to facilitate African
87