The aim of the ethical review process is to provide a thorough, impartial examination of the ethical issues of a piece of research in a collaborative, pragmatic and proportionate way in order to facilitate safe and ethical research.
If you have any questions and seeking approval from SGREC, please email the Research Ethics and Integrity Officer.
Read our frequently asked questions for further help and guidance with your application.
2024/25 Meeting Dates
The SGREC reviews research ethics applications for studies that have been categorised as 'high risk', as per the Ethical review process. The level of risk is assessed by the Research Ethics and Integrity Officer at the point of validation, and it may be necessary to escalate lower risk applications for committee review where applications require additional consideration. We therefore advise that all applications are submitted well in advance of the relevant deadline.
Please note that the cut-off time for all application submissions is at 4 pm on the dates listed below.
- Monday 27 January, 4-6 pm
- Submission deadline: Monday 13 January
- Thursday 20 February, 4-6 pm
- Thursday 6 February
- Monday 17 March, 4-6 pm
- Submission deadline: Monday 3 March
- Thursday 17 April, 4-6 pm
- Submission deadline: Thursday 3 April
- Monday 19 May, 4-6 pm
- Submission deadline: Thursday 1 May
- Thursday 19 June, 4-6 pm
- Submission deadline: Thursday 5 June
- Monday 21 July, 4-6 pm
- Submission deadline: Monday 7 July
Drop-in Sessions
The Research Ethics and Integrity Officer runs a weekly drop-in session, taking place via MS Teams every Wednesday (3-4 pm). This is an opportunity to discuss your research ethics application before submitting for review by the SGREC. Please note that there may be a wait time if there is a queue.
The drop-in sessions can be accessed via this Teams Link.
If you experience any issues with the link, please try accessing via the meeting ID and passcode below.
Meeting ID: 347 534 205 593
Passcode: 3Hh3tU7A
You can also contact the Research Ethics & Integrity Officer via email at any time with any questions/queries you may have.
Committee Members
Professor Paul Heath – SGREC Chair from March 2019 to Present – Professor in Paediatric Infectious Diseases [I&I]
Professor Paul Heath, Professor of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, City St George’s University of London & St George’s University Hospitals NHS Trust, London. His training in paediatrics and infectious diseases was at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford and St George’s Hospital, London. His particular research interests are in the epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases, in clinical vaccine trials, particularly in at-risk groups and in perinatal infections. He coordinates a European neonatal infection surveillance network (neonIN) and the UK Paediatric Vaccine Group (UKPVG), and other recent work includes national surveillance on neonatal meningitis, neonatal GBS and Listeria infections, maternal immunisation trials and studies of different vaccine schedules in preterm infants. He sits on national UK committees concerned with meningitis, Group B streptococcus prevention and on immunisation policies in children.
He is Chair of the Research Committee of the European Society of Paediatric Infectious Diseases, Associate Chief Editor of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Journal and Clinical Lead for Children’s research for the South London Clinical Research Network.
Dr Paris Ataliotis – SGREC Deputy Chair from April 2020 to present - Senior Lecturer in Development Genetics [IMBE]
Dr Ataliotis is involved in general and specialised teaching to undergraduate students on the Biomedical Science BSc, as well as course organisation and assessment. He also teaches and supervises postgraduate research students at Master's and PhD levels. He has worked previously as a Senior Research Fellow in Professor Peter Scambler's group at the Institute of Child Health. This group was instrumental in identifying the genetic cause of 22q11DS and exploring the contribution of individual genes to this disorder, using mouse, chick and frog model systems.
Dr Ataliotis completed his PhD at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and University College London, where, with colleagues from the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), he helped to develop Immortomouse. This genetically modified mouse permits the isolation of immortal cell lines (cells that continue dividing indefinitely) from a variety of embryonic and adult tissues.
Dr Ataliotis's PhD was preceded by 3 years at the National Institute for Medical Research as a Research Officer, studying desmosome cell junctions with Professor Tony Magee, and prior to this a BSc in Biochemistry at Manchester University.
Dr Christopher Carroll - Lecturer in Human Genetics (MCS)
Dr Christopher Carroll is a Lecturer in Human Genetics at City St George’s, University of London. His research focuses on understanding the genetic causes of rare inherited neurological and metabolic diseases, with focus on mitochondrial disorders. He completed a PhD in Molecular Medicine at the Institute of Child Health, University College London, followed by an Academy of Finland post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Helsinki where he investigated the molecular mechanisms of inherited mitochondrial diseases. He teaches on undergraduate and postgraduate degree courses and supervises students undertaking their research projects in his group.
Georgia Bullock - Research Development & Governance Manager [JRES]
Georgia has a background in nursing and has worked in clinical research for around 20 years. She is currently the Research Development and Governance Manager at City St George’s and is mainly responsible for the set-up and oversight of interventional clinical trials led by City St George’s.
Marc Moyce – SGREC Secretary from November 2024 to Present, Research Ethics and Integrity Officer [JRES]
Marc joined the JRES team as Research Ethics and Integrity Officer in November 2024, having previously worked in a number of professional service roles within the fields of research ethics and student support. He currently oversees all research ethics and integrity matters for studies based at the Tooting Campus, in both the School of Health Medical Sciences and the University Hospitals NHS Trust, London. He also manages the delivery of research ethics and integrity training for students based at the Tooting Campus.
Gill Mein - Senior Lecturer in Health and Wellbeing
She has been Faculty Research Ethics Lead for five years. She has seen the ethics committee develop from a traditional in person committee to an online committee where she oversaw all the applications from staff and students in the Faculty before sending them out for a second review and decisions.
She is also currently involved in two research projects collaborating with colleagues at CSGUL, and external collaborators.
Her teaching includes BSc and MSc students of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, nurses and midwives in the joint Faculty. She is a module lead for the Practical Data Analysis module in the CPF programme at CSGUL. She teaches mainly research methods, but also, health promotion, social inequalities in health, and managing dementia.
She has loved her time as faculty Ethics lead, she felt it kept her updated with current research projects, and helped her identify the future teaching students need.
Dr Elizabeth Staddon - Reader in Higher Education Practice and Development
Elizabeth is a Reader in Higher Education Practice and Development at City St George’s within the Centre for Innovation and Development in Education (CIDE). She has held educational development roles in higher education settings for the past seventeen years, teaching education research methods and ethics, and supervising staff on Masters programmes in academic practice.
Elizabeth holds Masters degrees in Ethics & Social Philosophy and Psychology of Education, and a PhD in Education. She has completed mixed methods and qualitative research projects on aspects of higher education teaching and learning, and has a strong interest in philosophical theories behind ethical decision-making.
Samantha Laws – Lecturer in the Multi-Professional Education Section
Samantha Laws is a paramedic by background and a Lecturer in the Multi-Professional Education Section at City St George’s, University of London. This section delivers masters level education to a range of different professionals including paramedics, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and dietitians. Her teaching is mainly about medicines and evidence based practice and she supervises students undertaking their MSc projects. She is currently undertaking a PhD at Cardiff University in patient safety, investigating how the process by which patients are non-conveyed following the attendance of an ambulance occurs in real clinical practice. Her other research is about paramedic practice.
Jeremy Opoku – Clinical Research Coordinator
Jeremy Opoku is a Clinical Research Coordinator at St George’s University Hospitals NHS Trust, based within the Clinical Research Facility. With a strong background in both commercial and academic clinical trials, Jeremy has experience working across a wide range of trial portfolios.
Jeremy holds a Master of Research in Bioscience and a first degree in Neuroscience. He is also an active member of the St George’s University Hospitals Clinical Ethics Committee, where his understanding of patient care, alongside his knowledge of bioscientific issues gained through his Master’s, contributes to addressing the ethical challenges in research, particularly those impacting patient and animal welfare, and informed consent.
Hamin Lee - Student Representative
Hamin Lee is an MRC LID PhD candidate interested in mitochondrial diseases and mice models. He first obtained an undergraduate degree in biomedical sciences at KCL where biomedical scientific interests were cultivated. Following his interested, he proceeded to study MRes in SGUL which gave him the foundations of research where the core principles and intricacies of research was experienced. For his master’s project, he studied a mouse model of mitochondrial disease, utilising various molecular biology techniques to accurately characterise the mice. Afterwards, he went on to work in Henry Houlden’s lab in UCL institute of neurology, one of the biggest rare neurological disease centres in Europe. There he was exposed to the processes of genetic analysis, such as dissecting exome sequencing data, validation protocols and quality control experiments to ensure the highest level of research was produced. His journey led him back to his master’s lab where he will be leveraging the latest multi-omic technologies to deeply phenotype the mouse model for his PhD.
Huba Kamran - Student Representative
Huba is a third-year physiotherapy student with prior clinical experience in orthopaedics and elderly medicine. Her exposure to patient care has sparked a strong interest in the ethical dimensions of healthcare and highlighted its importance of its considerations. As a recent member of the MS research network, she has a special interest in developing a better understanding of how principles guide research involving vulnerable populations, particularly in relation to neurological studies.
Just out of interest (and I may well have missed a previous communication about this), will staff who were able to edit legacy SGUL webpages be trained and able to edit webpages on the new CSGUL site in the future? I ask as we may require some significant redesigns to our research ethics webpages in the new year due to the restructuring of the committees in the School of Health and Medical Sciences.
Sabrin F. Mohamed - Student Representative
Sabrin is a medical student at City St George’s, University of London and has an interest across various aspects of research within higher academia. During her four years at university, she has specialised in ‘Medical Ethics and Law’ and has covered ‘Clinical Ethics’ and ‘Research Ethics’ in depth. In applying her skills, she has conducted her research study into the ethics and legalities of assisted dying wherein she underwent ethics approval in order to publish her primary data. Whilst working with Dr Southgate, Sabrin has understood various aspects of the role of a senior principal investigator such as the application of grant approvals as well as reading and analysing data using bioinformatic tools like FinchTV and Chromas. She wishes to pursue a career as a Clinical Academic.
Lay Members
Nahiedh Khan - Legal adviser at UK Ministry of Justice and Lawyer
Solicitor PQE of 9 years. I specialise in Criminal law, Extradition law & Confiscation law. I practice & advice in the magisterial court system. Dealing with petty criminals to sophiscated crime work, which can have an element of enforcement work to it.
Sue Alexander - Home Maker
Sue has much experience volunteering. Such experience include; Westmidlands probation service, Narco (Birmingham), Citzen's Advice Bureau, Scope (working for the disabled charity), The Mix (Working with troubled children). Sue can offer a great insight into everyday life problems but in addition to working closely with people with disabilities and troubled children - she is able to offer advice on those issues.
Dr Victor Paul Olisa - QPM
Victor served as a police officer for 35 years. He joined Surrey Police in 1982 straight from university.
He transferred to City of London Police in 1990 and worked in various roles, including the Fraud Squad as Detective Inspector. In 2003 he was seconded to the Home Office to work on Stop and Search, which involved advising Ministers on policy and chief police officers on good practice. In 2005 he was awarded a PhD in Criminology at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He transferred on promotion to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) in 2006 and in 2012 was promoted to Chief Superintendent and worked in Bexley and Haringey as Borough Commander. In 2016 he headed the MPS Diversity and Inclusion Unit. In 2017, he was awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for distinguished police service. After retirement in 2017 he worked as a Visiting Fellow at LSE. He is a visiting lecturer at Universities of Portsmouth, Liverpool John Moores and West London. He joined the Board of Governors at NACRO in May 2020.
Damion Bailey - Education, Workforce & Professional Development Lead at GSTT
Damion has worked in the NHS for over 25 years, initially qualifying as a Radiographer before undertaking postgraduate education in Nuclear Medicine. He is currently working as the Education, Workforce and Professional Development Lead in Nuclear Medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. His role involves promoting and supporting the education and training of the multi-disciplinary Nuclear Medicine workforce at a local and national level, in addition to research and audit. Damion completed his Master of Research degree at SGUL and has an interest in professional identity.
Annual Reports
SGREC Policies
The SGREC operates under the following regulations.
These documents are reviewed every year at the last SGREC meeting of the year.