Support for research

South West Healthcare’s responsibilities

• Promoting the responsible conduct of research.
• Establishing good governance and management practices.
• Providing support and continuing education for all research staff and students.
• Promoting effective mentoring and supervision or research staff and students.
• Ensuring researchers have access to a safe working environment in which to conduct each research project.

Researcher responsibilities

All SWH staff and affiliates, including students, who are involved in research associated with the SWH should:

• Conduct research safely, with honesty and integrity.
• Adhere to ethical standards.
• Respect research participants, animal used in research and the environment.
• Participate in ongoing training programs including in research integrity.
• Provide mentoring, training and support of fellow researchers including new researchers.
• Disclose financial or other conflicts of interest.
• Employ appropriate methods and use a high level of rigour and objectivity in research activities.
• Manage research data responsibly including making and securely storing complete, clear, attributable, accurate and enduring records of all research.
• Communicate research results responsibly – Share findings and data openly, honestly and promptly, as soon as they have established provenance, ownership claims and if there are any barriers to sharing the data such as legal requirements of contracts, intellectual property claims, or the uniqueness of the data may lead to privacy issues.
• Acknowledge of the role of others in research and appropriately cite and, where applicable, obtain permission for the use of all published and unpublished work.
• Acknowledge in research outputs all contributors and contributions to the research described in the research output.
• Be listed as an author of a research output only when they have made a significant intellectual or scholarly contribution that they are willing to be accountable for and agree to be listed as an author.
• Participate in the peer review process. Give fair, prompt and rigorous evaluations, and respect confidentiality when participating in peer review.
• Respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander heritage in ways that promote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and understanding and respect between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians in the conduct of research in Australia.
• Provide complete and accurate information in all research applications including ethical, governance and funding applications and related documents.
• Use funds for research in accordance with relevant funding agreements.
• Ensure future use of research results are in accordance with applicable requirements and permissions.
• Seek advice and discuss any concerns about the conduct of research with research integrity advisers and report any suspected research misconduct.

These principles and responsibilities are influenced by the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018).

SWH requires research practices conducted at South West Healthcare to be ethically sound and have integrity.

All staff and affiliates, including students, who are involved in research associated with SWH should be familiar with and must comply with the Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research (2018). It is the responsibility of supervisors to ensure that those involved in research projects have the appropriate education, training, experience, mentoring and support to conduct quality research, safely and responsibly.

Approval from the SWH Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) needs to remain current for the duration of the project. Investigators undertaking projects without active approval risk their indemnity, funding and publication rights.

For advice, support or further information about the policies, guidelines and codes that apply to researchers at the SWH, you can talk to our Research team.

South West Healthcare is proud to be a research focused organisation, and is a member of Western Alliance Academic Health Science Centre (Western Alliance). Since its formation in 2014, Western Alliance has funded collaborative research projects and supported health practitioner researchers across western Victoria in their goal to address some of the key rural and regional health issues. Through their STaRR program (Supporting Translation of Research in Rural and Regional settings), Western Alliance offers a suite of research training opportunities, as well as research and evidence translation support through their ‘Research Translation Coordinator’ positions who work across Western Alliance health organisations. These services are available free of charge for all South West Healthcare employees.

Find out more about Western Alliance

To get in touch with Louise Greenstock, the Research Translation Coordinator supporting South West Healthcare, please email louise.greenstock@wdhs.net

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