SA-PCCOC has as a primary aim the promotion of multi-disciplinary collaborative research.
The Steering Committee and/or the Research Committee under the direction of the principal investigator/director of research/executive officer or delegate, will be responsible for assessing and making recommendations to the Steering Committee, concerning all requests for access to the SA-PCCOC data base, unless otherwise indicated below.

The Steering Committee, at its absolute discretion, may vary any or all of the following on a case by case consideration. All research applications must conform to ethically approved standards.
SA-PCCOC is under no obligation to consider any proposal.
 
Research and Non-Commercial Applicants
 

These will be considered subject to the following criteria:

 

  • Source/appropriateness of individual or organisation requesting application;
  • Scientific merit of proposed project;
  • The project is consistent with the objectives and goals of SA-PCCOC;
  • Availability and workload of SA-PCCOC staff.  This may include a consideration of resources to be provided by the applicant;
  • Financial implications and costs to SA-PCCOC;
  • Prioritization of existing studies. The committee may, at its’ discretion, approve and defer a proposal until such time as funds are available, or higher priority projects are completed.

 

Financial Arrangements with Applicants
 

In assessing an application, SA-PCCOC will have consideration for the financial arrangements of the proposal which may include:

 

  • Wholly funded by SA-PCCOC
  • Wholly funded by the applicant
  • Partially funded by SA-PCCOC and the applicant. The contribution from SA-PCCOC will be determined on a case by case basis, on recommendation by the Research/Steering Committees and approval by the Steering Committee.

 

Where an applicant provides partial or total funding, SA-PCCOC reserves the right to reject the application if the applicant’s funding is considered inadequate for its scope. SA-PCCOC may provide a revised funding estimate for consideration by the applicant, but is under no obligation to do so.

 

Guidelines for Funding of Applicants

 

SA-PCCOC may fully fund applications from members of the urological units of the Repatriation General Hospital, TQEH and the RAH; members and trainees of the SA & NT Section of the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand; employees or committee members of SA-PCCOC, and the Cancer Council of SA.

 

Health professionals from the RGH, TQEH, RAH; the University of Adelaide, the University of South Australia and the Flinders University without an association, may be eligible for partial funding.

 

In assessing the extent of partial funding, consideration will be given to the proportion of participants in the application who fulfil the criteria.

 

All other applicants are required to be fully self-funding, and reimburse SA-PCCOC in full for all costs associated with data retrieval, compilation, analysis etc.  This guideline may, in exceptional circumstances, be altered on a case by case basis to include some contribution from SA-PCCOC, but this would be unusual.

 

Notwithstanding any of the above, ALL applicants, regardless of their associations, should be encouraged to try and provide partial funding.

 

Collaborative ventures with other organisations which will combine data from each source will be considered special cases, and funding arrangements will be negotiated on an individual case basis.

 

Government/Statutory Bodies and Commercial Applicants

 

All government, statutory body and commercial applications will be forwarded to, and determined by the Steering Committee. Complete funding for the study must be guaranteed by the applicant. SA-PCCOC reserves the right to assess if the applicant’s funding is adequate for the proposal.

 

External applications which the Steering Committee considers may be related to market research, commercialisation of products, information which may provide an organisation with an advantage over a competitor in the market place, or conflict with the goals and purpose of SA-PCCOC etc. will not be considered.

 

Minimum Information and Requirements of Applicants
 
A curriculum vitae of the applicant, either from an individual or organisation.

 

A description of the proposal, including reason for the study, question(s) to be answered, methodology, expected outcomes in comparison to published literature, etc. The proposed end result of the study e.g. presentation (nominate forum), publication in peer reviewed articles.

 

An undertaking that the data remains the property of SA-PCCOC and cannot be used, reused or combined with other data, or used for any other purpose apart from that specified in the original application, without written permission from SA-PCCOC.

 

Acknowledgement(s) in all presentations and publications as prescribed by, and to the satisfaction of SA-PCCOC.
A cost analysis if the study is not fully funded by SA-PCCOC. This should specify in detail what resources are to be contracted to SA-PCCOC, and which resources are supplied by the applicant.
The applicant agrees to abide by accepted publishing industry codes, guidelines and ethics, and will not engage in misconducts including, but not limited to the following:

 

  • Listing authors who have not made a substantial contribution to the preparation of the material (‘inappropriate authorship and gratuitous publication’)
  • Redundant/duplicate publication of the same material in different journals.
  • Divide a study as thinly as possible into “minimally publishable units” without reference to the other publications (‘salami slicing’).
  • Plagiarism
  • Fraud including omission, cherry picking, or ‘manipulation’ of ‘inconvenient’ data, results, or outcomes.

 

All applicants are required to complete the SA-PCCOC Data Use Agreement.

 

Our Data Use Agreement is attached here.