Apply for animal ethics approval

Who needs to apply

You must apply to the PIRSA Animal Ethics Committee (AEC) for ethics approval and clearance if you are:

  • conducting research, experimentation or teaching that involves animal interventions beyond routine animal husbandry procedures
  • a PIRSA employee intending to use animals for teaching, research or experimentation
  • collaborating with PIRSA on work that includes the use of animals
  • a student conducting a project in conjunction with PIRSA (your supervisor must be the applicant)
  • a university candidate or PIRSA personnel working within other institutions (you must send your application to the PIRSA AEC and the AECs of all other relevant institutions)
  • holding animals on PIRSA premises.

If you meet the application criteria:

  • You must not hold or start any activities involving the use of animals before you have obtained approval from the relevant AEC(s).
    In this context, use and holding includes:
    • the use or involvement of animals in research projects or experiments, irrespective of the site involved or the source of funding
    • holding, breeding or any other keeping of animals
    • fieldwork, including capture and release after marking.
  • Do not submit a full research and development proposal without approval from the PIRSA AEC. This also applies to commercially contracted research work.

See the terms of reference and application guidelines for more information.

Key dates

Submission deadline Meeting date
29 January 202412 February 2024
8 April 2024 29 April 2024
3 June 2024 24 June 2024
29 July 2024 19 August 2024
30 September 202421 October 2024
18 November 2024 9 December 2024

If you miss a submission deadline, your application will be held until the next meeting.

Fees

In line with PIRSA policy on service cost recovery, an application fee applies to each submission the PIRSA AEC reviews.

The fees are:

  • Internal (PIRSA/SARDI) $476.37 (no GST)
  • External bodies (universities, private companies, etc) $720.29 (GST inc.)

How to apply

  1. Read the application guidelines.

Application guidelines

Before you begin your application, you must be familiar with:

Your written proposal should:

  • provide the PIRSA AEC with sufficient information justifying that your proposed use of animals complies with the principles of replacement, reduction and refinement.
  • present information that is easily accessible for the AEC
  • be written in a manner that can be understood by all members of the AEC
  • identify the impacts on the animal and the means by which the impact will be minimised.

See the '3Rs' - replacement, reduction and refinement factsheet on the Department of Environment and Water (DEW) website.

Completing the application form

Your application for approval covers your whole project.

You do not need to submit separate applications for each experiment within the project.

However, your description of your proposed experiments should adequately cover all experiments you intend to conduct during the project.

Filling out your application form:

  • Complete all required fields.
  • Attach separate pages where necessary.
  • If your work is linked with an application for support by a funding body, please attach a copy of your project application.
  • Give the common name of animal species as well as the scientific name.
  • List all drugs you will administer, including dose and route:
    • use generic names at all times; brand names may be included
    • doses may be specified with an expected range (e.g. 2–8 mg/kg daily)
    • special diets, and dietary additives must be specified and quantified.

Collaborative projects

If your project involves collaboration with other institutions, you must seek approval from the animal ethics committee of each institute.

You may need to apply to each of the following:

  • PIRSA AEC
  • the AEC of each organisation collaborating on the project
  • the institutional AEC of any teacher supervising a research student
  • the AEC with responsibility for the animal holding facility.

For example, PIRSA university degree candidates require ethical clearance by the PIRSA AEC as well as the university's animal ethics committee.

You can send each committee duplicates of the same application.

Find the relevant AEC information for each institution.

Responsibilities

The project’s principal research officer or chief scientist:

  • is required to countersign the application form before you submit it to the PIRSA AEC
  • assumes responsibility for ensuring that procedures are carried out in accordance with final ethical approval.

The applicant:

Committee process

  • Ensure you submit your application before submission dates.
  • The committee only grants approvals at committee meetings.
  • No new application can be approved other than at a meeting of the committee.
  • The committee's executive (Chair and Category C or D member) may only approve minor amendments to a project when the case is urgent.

Approval processes for new projects

No new research contracts involving the use or holding of animals should be signed without PIRSA AEC approval.

  • No AEC approval is required for preliminary research proposals.
  • AEC approval is required for research proposals submitted as full grant applications.
  • Once a research contract is signed, you must submit all subsequent research projects in full to the AEC for approval.

Housing animals

AEC approval is required before allotting animal holding space or sourcing animals.

It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure adequate holding space is available for the animals.

Please note:

  • Some species of animal are more communal than others; isolation of such animals can cause them stress.
  • Our expectation is that you will not hold animals like sheep, deer and rats (for example) in individual pens or cages.
  • We recognise that there are circumstances in which individual housing is acceptable or preferable, and applicants need to provide justification for individual housing in their application.

Random inspections

The committee may make random inspections of animal holding facilities, laboratories and experiments in order to determine compliance with the approval conditions.

  1. Download and complete the relevant approval and clearance application form which must be signed by all parties:
  2. Download and complete the submission fees form (PDF 129.3 KB or DOCX 119.6 KB).
  3. Download and prepare a standard operating procedure (SOP) (DOCX 64.1 KB).
  4. If required, download and prepare an animal owner consent form (DOCX 100.7 KB).
  5. Email your application (application form, SOP, payment advice form) to PIRSA.AnimalEthics@sa.gov.au.

The PIRSA AEC will only review complete applications that provide sufficient information.

Contact us

If you have any questions about ethics approval or the committee, please contact the Executive Officer, PIRSA Animal Ethics Committee

PIRSA.AnimalEthics@sa.gov.au
Page last reviewed: 24 Nov 2023

 


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