Funding modalities of Ethics Review Committees: perspectives of representatives of selected ERCs in Ghana

Background: Ghana and other African countries contend with issues of funding Ethics Review Committees (ERCs), which limits their effectiveness and benefits to researchers, host institutions and other research ethics stakeholders. Objective: This study aimed to elucidate the funding challenges of ERCs in Ghana and to seek views on how ERCs could be adequately, ethically, and sustainably funded. Methods: With a purposive maximum variation sampling approach, five research institutions with well-established ERCs were selected for this study. Views of representatives of their ERCs were sought on the adequacy of funding for their work by interview. Results: All those interviewed were unanimous in their view that funding was inadequate for ERCs to fulfill their mandate of protecting the research public. This posed ethical dilemmas to the ERCs, especially in adopting a fee-paying policy for the review of protocols that disadvantaged poorly endowed institutions and researchers. To address these challenges, the respondents proposed a multifaceted funding model to include government subsidies, reliance on internally generated funds of the host institutions, and funding supplementation from external agencies and non-governmental organisations. Other recommendations include improvement in the efficiency of the financial administration of the ERCs and the establishment of a legislative instrument for a governing national research ethics committee that will also advocate adequate funding for ERCs Conclusion: The multifaceted funding model, which includes government funding as proposed by the respondents, would go a long way to ensure adequate and sustainable funding of ERCs. However, the consideration of fee-charging may pose ethical challenges. To address the funding challenges, the government must, as of utmost importance, recognise the critical roles ERCs play in protecting the research public and establish a national ethics review committee for effective governance to ensure research integrity and adequate budgetary allocation.