Project: Increasing the ethics capacity of oversight for clinical trials in Liberia by establishing European-African collaborations that facilitates implementation of efficient processes, harmonized procedures, standardized guidelines and educative training programs

Acronym	LiberHetica (Reference Number: CSA2018ERC-2327)
Duration	01/08/2019 - 31/07/2022
Project Topic	“Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” is a fundamental Sustainable Development Goal (SDG3). Between the countries for which this target is particularly challenging to be achieved by 2030, Liberia deserves a special attention. Indeed Liberia was hard hit by the unprecedented 2014-2016 Ebola Virus Disease outbreak and this also reversed some of the health gains made in the country following the end of a 14 year (1989-2003) civil crisis. All that contributes to the high burden of both communicable and non-communicable diseases that Liberia is still experiencing (1). These health priorities require a national ethical review system able to ensure, guide and catalyse a biomedical research addressing them, in the respect of the protection and welfare of the research participants. The objects of this proposal are: To increase the ethics capacity for the oversight of clinical trials at University of Liberia-Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation Institutional Review Board (UL-PIRE-IRB, hosted by UL-PIRE Africa Center), and at the National Research Ethics Board (NREB) of Liberia, and then to recommend the ethics capacity improvement strategy to the Ministry of Health of Liberia for a national level implementation. To strengthen the research ethics education, collaboration, and the ethics procedures harmonisation between the Liberian ethical bodies, universities, research centers and other institutions of the country. To address the balance of the gender, expertise and vulnerable populations representatives in the Liberian ethical bodies  Networking with West African, European and already existing ethics networks.  These objectives will be achieved by establishing a European-African collaborative network that facilitates the implementation of efficient procedures, standardised guidelines and educative training programmes. These objectives are relevant to the call topic as they address the limited capacity for ethics review of Liberia, establish long-term development plans for regional harmonisation of ethics review.
Network	EDCTP2
Call	Ethics and regulatory capacities 2018

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	UL-PIRE Africa Center	Coordinator	Liberia, Republic of
2	National Research Ethics Board of Liberia	Partner	Liberia, Republic of
3	R-Evolution Worldwide Community Interest Company	Partner	United Kingdom