Biomedical Research in Developing Countries - UNICRI

procedures; to support ethical standards in health research; utilizing health research
to promote equity in health.
The Department is engaged in three areas of work: Research Quality and
Transparency (International Clinical Trials Registry Platform - ICTRP, Guidelines
Review Committee, Ethics Review Committee); Research Translation and Utilization
(EVIPnet programme); Research Policy and Standards (WHO strategy on research
for health).
Within the Department of Research Policy and Cooperation, the Research Ethics
Review Committee (ERC), provides ethical review of all research that involves
human participants and that is managed, funded or supported by WHO. Research
projects range from basic sciences and clinical research to social sciences and
epidemiological research.
Proposals are submitted to the ERC by the WHO Technical Officer responsible for the
project. The Technical Officer works closely with the Principal Investigator in order
to facilitate the ethics review.
http://www.who.int/rpc/about/en/
WHO - Research Ethics Training Course
The Research Ethics Training Course, an interactive online training course, is
organized by the Department of Research Policy and Cooperation for researchers and
their teams, research ethics committees, technical officers, policy makers and people
interested in international health research. It is the e-training component of “The
Research Ethics Training Project: Developing, Implementing and Evaluating a
Training Module on Ethics in Public Health Research”. The first two modules have
been completed in 2007 (International Health Research Ethics: Complexities and
Challenges; Promoting Health Research and Safeguarding Research Participants:
Guidelines and Structures). Four additional modules are being developed to be
offered in the course of 2008, taking into account the lessons learned from the two
previous modules. The modules are: “Ethical Issues in informed consent”, “Ethical
challenges in study design”, “Ethical challenges in social scientific health research”,
“Professional ethics”. The project is the result of a collaboration between WHO and
the University of Geneva.
WHO - Initiative for Vaccine Research
The WHO Initiative for Vaccine Research is administratively hosted within the WHO
Department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals and its major constituencies
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