Australia has become only the second developed country after Canada to consolidate its approach to ethical conduct of research involving humans in a comprehensive new set of guiding principles agreed by all major players. The 'National Statement on Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans' broadens the focus from medical research to encompass disciplines including sociology, anthropology and education, says Don Chalmers, who chairs the health ethics committee within the government's biomedical advisory body, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).

The Statement marks the first time that the major research funding organisations have collectively addressed the issue of ethics, bringing together not only the NHMRC but the Australian vice-chancellors committee, the Australian Research Council and the leading national academies.

Chalmers believes the consistency in approach will facilitate multicenter research, which in the past has been hampered by conflicting demands from different ethics committees. The new director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research in Canberra and former chief government medical officer, Judith Whitworth, sees the bid for consistency as a "great benefit" in a climate of "increasing forays by Australians into international collaborative research." Whitworth adds, "The superiority of diverse ethics committees and their individual requirements has been a vexed question, sometimes leading to delays and to some centres having to drop out of multinational studies."

The new guidelines stipulate that if the core ethics committee membership is boosted by extra researchers, the numbers of lay members and outsiders must also be increased in the same proportion.

The document stipulates that ethics committees should comprise a minimum of seven members, two of which must be lay members, and at least one with experience in the area of research being considered, a religious minister and at least one lawyer.