At NCKU's 2023 Southern Region Research Ethics Alliance Conference, nearly 40 school representatives attended.-國立成功大學永續發展SDGs

The 2023th Southern Region Research Ethics Alliance Meeting was held this afternoon at the Yun-Ping Administration Bldg.'s Second Conference Room on the Kuang-Fu Campus of National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), with nearly 40 representatives from member schools attending.

Since 2010, NCKU has been promoting the establishment and operation of a governance framework for research ethics in human behavior studies, aiming to develop research ethics that align with various fields such as humanities, engineering, education, and management. Vice President of NCKU, Ching-Chang Lee, expressed that the Southern Region Research Ethics Alliance continues to attract new schools, government agencies, or national research centers to join, and its influence is growing. The research and development departments of member schools play an important role in promoting related initiatives. It is believed that the alliance will continue to improve its quality, establish professional ethics review consultation channels, achieve resource integration and sharing, and enable researchers to pay more attention to the ethical issues of each research participant in their research projects.

In 2022th, NCKU's "Human Research Ethics Review Committee" passed the Ministry of Education's audit once again and signed institutional review agreements with over 60 schools and units, allowing researchers to submit their projects for ethical review with confidence. Su-Lin Yu, Director of the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences at NCKU, expressed gratitude for the support of partner schools, enabling the successful passage of the Ministry of Education's audit once every four years. It is believed that through everyone's efforts and cooperation, we can continue to create ethical norms that society can trust.

The Southern Region Research Ethics Alliance was established in 2012, with over 50 universities participating and supporting, including those from the central, southern, and outlying island regions. The alliance cooperation mechanism has steadily developed, and through collaboration, professional research ethics consultation channels have been established, realizing resource integration and sharing. In addition to the routine business reports and discussions during the meeting on the 13th, Professor Shu-Chin Kuo, Chair of NCKU's Human Research Ethics Review Committee and Deputy Director of the Office of Academic Integrity Promotion, shared the differences between "academic ethics," "research ethics," "IRB," and "HREC."

Dr. Yu-Pei Chen, Director of the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Medical Secretary at Tainan Hospital, Ministry of Health and Welfare, was invited to explain recent important regulatory changes related to researchers to the members of the alliance. These changes include lowering the legal age of adulthood to 18 in the Civil Code starting January 1st, 2023, and the impact of relevant issues such as the judgment No. 13 of the Constitutional Interpretation Commission in 2022 on research execution in the National Health Insurance database.

In recent years, affected by the pandemic, the Southern Region Research Ethics Alliance has placed more emphasis on promoting online courses, including interactive "Research Ethics Practical Workshops," allowing researchers from various regions to continue to obtain research ethics information and educational hours, receiving widespread praise and positive feedback.

In the future, NCKU's governance framework for human research ethics will continue to operate the Southern Region Research Ethics Alliance, providing services such as research ethics review, educational courses, and professional consultations, so that research teams, research participants, and stakeholders in research fields can pay more attention to ethical issues in the research process and jointly create research results that society can trust.