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The ICMR-DHR outreach program, conceptualized under the guidance of the DG ICMR, is actively engaging with ethics committees in rural India to gain a comprehensive understanding of the challenges they encounter in their daily operations. This initiative is focused on identifying gaps in existing guidelines and rules, particularly in terms of their completeness and adaptability at the functional level of ethics committees. As a key enabler of research in the country, the ICMR-DHR outreach program is positioned to provide future direction for guideline development and offer a deeper understanding of other ICMR and DHR initiatives.

Through this program, a team of scientists from ICMR and DHR has visited ethics committees across various regions of the country, interacting directly with committee members to understand the ground-level issues in their functioning. These interactions have been instrumental in uncovering the challenges and concerns that ethics committees face in their day-to-day activities. Importantly, the program not only identifies these issues but also explores feasible solutions to overcome them.

The outreach efforts have provided ICMR with valuable insights into the functional problems and potential solutions for ethics committees. By reaching out to over 107 ethics committees so far, the program is offering crucial support and gathering insights that will aid in the revision of existing guidelines and facilitate the ethics review process for research projects. A team of scientists from ICMR and DHR has visited ethics committees in different regions of the country and interacted with ethics committee members to understand the ground-level issues in EC functioning. Each member and other stakeholders of the ethics committee have shared their experiences and the obstacles they faced in conducting ethics committee activity. Each of these outreach programs has not only discussed the problems but also taken a deep dive into the possible solutions that can be adopted to overcome the challenges. This activity has provided ICMR with valuable insights of functional issues and possible solutions for the ethics committees. The program reached out to over 107 ethics committees so far, offering support and collecting valuable insights to aid in the revision of existing guidelines and facilitating ethics review of research.