BMJ  2004;329:623 (11 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7466.623-a

Letter

Research bureaucracy in the United Kingdom

Good governance is needed

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Transparent ethical scrutiny should come sufficiently early in the "life" of a research project that the design can incorporate the management of any risks to the public. A feeding frenzy for funding opportunities can make it difficult to organise such early scrutiny. The BMJ shows examples of a new problem: the paralysis of research by bureaucracy associated with ethics committees.¹ Even committee members seem helplessly entangled in the new procedures.² Hopefully, your readers will help to loose the Gordian knot created by these central "COREC" procedures.

However, research governance goes far beyond the inefficiency of a particular committee and is unfairly caricatured by the "face" published here.³ At the heart of governance is accountability.⁴ The scientific community owes this accountability to the patients and wider public who support research activities. Without their trust and goodwill, academic medical research would die—or else, possibly, degenerate into the coercive horror of . . . [Full text of this article]

APU, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1SQ awc1@jess.che.apu.ac.uk

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