Secure Committee Management & Reading Room Software

Description

The Health Research Board (HRB) is a state agency that supports research and provides evidence to prevent illness, improve health and transform patient care. The HRB has 65 staff. Our annual budget is in excess of €45m and we manage a research investment portfolio of approximately €200m. The agency is funded mainly by the Department of Health, and Board members are appointed by the Minister for Health. The HRB hosts the recently established National Office for Research Ethics Committees, an independent office with a regulatory role for health research. The National Office is an important addition to the national research infrastructure and its remit represents a significant new confidential committee workflow within organisation. The National Office will operationally support the work of National Research Ethics Committees (NRECs), which will be established by the Minister for Health to review the ethics underpinning select areas of health research. Three NRECs will be launched in May to enable Ireland to meet its Member State obligations to imminent EU Regulations in clinical trials and medical devices. These NRECs will have a national mandate to review research studies in these areas; this will require a highly secure, fit-for-purpose and user-friendly IT solution to enable both the work of the committee members work and the management by the National Office of the committees. The majority of their work will be conducted remotely including communication with each other using a reading room application. Requirements 86 software licences are required initially, 68 of these from April 2021 and the remaining 18 from August 2021. NREC members will access the software through an iPad provided by the National Office. Further detail of requirements is contained in Appendix 1.