Overview of School of Medicine Research Ethics Committee Review Process
The School of Medicine Research Ethics Committee reviews applications from staff and students from the School of Medicine TCD. Applications should be submitted to the Committee via REAMS.
All applicants must register their application using their TCD email address and supply their TCD Staff Number on the Application Form. Applications from person’s not affiliated with TCD will not be considered.
Applications involving research on vulnerable groups such as service users, patients, children under 18 years of age, etc, or applications that include invasive biological samples are not appropriate for review at Level 2 and should be sent to the Faculty Level 3 Research Ethics Committee, or if appropriate the Joint Research Ethics Committee (JREC). Any patient-related research being undertaken on the St James/ Tallaght hospital sites that requires ethical approval requires a submission to be made via Joint Research Ethics Committee (JREC) or applicants should apply to the appropriate hospital/HSE or other relevant ethics review board. Please review our Level 2 Research Ethics Checklist to see if it is appropriate to submit your application to this committee.
All members of staff or students undertaking research should do so with cognisance of the Trinity College Guidelines for Good Research Practice no matter what their research project entails.
If your project involves the recruitment of students from the School of Medicine, a letter of support, must be sought from the Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning in the School of Medicine before making an application to any research ethics committee. To seek such a letter please email a brief outline of your study and a copy of your application to: Director of Undergraduate Teaching & Learning for School of Medicine
Level 2 School of Medicine Research Ethics Application for Review
The School of Medicine Research Ethics Committee reviews applications from staff and students from the School of Medicine TCD. These applications must match the Level 2 Research Ethics checklist as set out here:. All applicants must register their application using their TCD email address and supply their TCD Staff Number on the Application Form.
If your study does not meet the Level 2 Research Ethics checklist criteria, you must apply to the relevant Research Ethics Committee listed below;
- Level 3 Research Ethics Applications for Review
All research ethics applications matching the Level 3 criteria must be submitted to the Faculty Research Ethics Committee. - Animal Research Ethics Applications All research ethics applications involving animals must be approved by the TCD Animal Research Ethics Committee.
- Hospital Research Ethics Applications Any patient related research being undertaken on the St James/ Tallaght hospital site which requires ethical approval requires a submission to be made via Joint Research Ethics Committee (JREC): Claire.Hartin@tuh.ie
Should you be unsure of whether your application meets the criteria for the School of Medicine Level 2 Committee review please send an email to somrec@tcd.ie providing a short description of the research you wish to undertake, and advice will be provided.
| SOMREC Meetings 2025-26 | Application Submission Cut Off |
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Wednesday, 24th September 2025 Wednesday, 29th October 2025 Wednesday, 26th November 2025 Wednesday, 28th January 2026 Wednesday, 25th February 2026 Wednesday, 25th March 2026 Wednesday, 29th April 2026 Wednesday, 27th May 2026 Wednesday, 24th June 2026
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Monday, 15th September 2025 Monday, 20th October 2025 Monday, 17th November 2025 Monday, 19th January 2026 Monday, 16th February 2026 Monday, 16th March 2026 Monday, 20th April 2026 Monday, 18th May 2026 Monday, 15th June 2026 |
Once an ethics application has been approved by SOMREC, the researcher(s) is responsible for ensuring that the study is conducted in adherence to the protocols outlined in their ethics application.
Amendment requests to approved studies may be considered where the amendment request constitutes a minor change to the original application that does not materially change the previously approved study. Examples of the type of change that may be submitted as an amendment request include:
- Extension to the end date of the study where there is no change to methods of the approved study (no change to the study methods, recruitment, or data collection).
- Extension of recruitment to the study (for example accessing a wider sample/participants) with no change to the study methods or data collection.
- Inclusion of an additional member of the research team
- Addition of a new data collection site
- Limited changes to the protocol that will not have a major impact on the content of the participant information leaflet, DPIA etc.
Small changes to the wording of an interview schedule, for example, do not require that an amendment be submitted, unless the content explored is substantially different.
Any alterations to an approved study that involve a change in study methods (for example introducing a new methodology such as the inclusion of a qualitative component, recruitment of a new sample/participants where the study methods are also changing), need to be submitted as a new and separate REC application and will be queued for full review by the committee at the next available meeting.
To submit an amendment click on ‘New Ethics Application’, verify the checklist and select ‘Amendment’ from the ‘Application Type’ drop down list. A yellow pop up will appear summarising what constitutes an amendment.
Another pop-up will also appear giving you a list of your existing applications. Choose the one you wish to amend, then make sure to put this in as the project title so that both the amendment project title and the existing application share the same name. The fields in the amendment will automatically populate from the original application and will be badged ‘amendment’ to signify this. Make the changes to the relevant sections. Please then complete this form and upload it as an attachment to your amendment. You can then resubmit the application.
Some specific item attachments (named person, site, method) may need to be re-uploaded prior to submission.
For all queries related to your application to the School of Medicine Research Ethics Committee, please email SOMREC@tcd.ie