Milestones of preparing the guidelines

Milestones of preparing the guidelines:

· In 2002, The Ministerial Decision no 11 / 2002 was issued for the formation of Health Research Council (HRC).

· The first meeting of Health Research Council was held in March 2003 with the recommendations of formation of the National Ethics Review Committee (NHREC).

· In 2005 a meeting was organized for the NHREC in the Federal Ministry of Health. The members of the committee reached a common consensus that research ethics guidelines and research ethics directory should be developed, approved and the endorsed.

· The NHREC nominated two subcommittees: for research ethics guidelines for investigators, and the for writing the proposal reviewing process.

· In 2006 6^th and 13^th of June two meetings of the NHREC were held in the FMOH.

· Two members of the committee were assigned to prepare National Ethics Format and Checklist for ethical review of the research proposals.

· The secretariat of the NHREC reviewed the outcome of the above activities and prepared the final draft of these guidelines.

· The final edited draft was submitted to the NHREC.

· It was finally printed in December 2008.