Strengthening governance and ethics for clinical trials in South Australia

On the 3 Novem­ber, the CEIH and the South Aus­tralian Com­pre­hen­sive Can­cer Net­work (SAC­CaN) host­ed a Can­cer Clin­i­cal Tri­als Gov­er­nance and Ethics work­shop, bring­ing togeth­er more than 60 clin­i­cians, researchers, tri­al coor­di­na­tors, admin­is­tra­tors and con­sumers with lived experience. 

Build­ing on the pri­or­i­ties iden­ti­fied at the March 2025 SA Can­cer Clin­i­cal Tri­als work­shop, the ses­sion focused on strength­en­ing our shared under­stand­ing of how gov­er­nance and ethics process­es cur­rent­ly oper­ate across South Aus­tralia, where things feel unclear, and what oppor­tu­ni­ties could make the sys­tem eas­i­er to navigate. 

Par­tic­i­pants explored how these process­es oper­ate day-to-day, where dif­fer­ences occur between ser­vices and how this affects tri­al start-up and col­lab­o­ra­tion. Through group dis­cus­sions and activ­i­ties, they iden­ti­fied the steps that feel unclear or incon­sis­tent, and where greater statewide align­ment could make a mean­ing­ful dif­fer­ence. These insights helped refine key pri­or­i­ties for strength­en­ing clin­i­cal tri­als in South Australia. 

The work­shop also high­light­ed how gov­er­nance and ethics process­es con­nect across the whole sys­tem. A con­sumer with lived expe­ri­ence, along with clin­i­cians and tri­al staff, shred prac­ti­cal per­spec­tives that helped shape a col­lec­tive view of what a more con­nect­ed and effec­tive statewide approach could look like.