Dear users of TRREE,

We are pleased to announce the launch of 14 national supplements, as of now titled ‘National or Local Regulatory Framework’.

National experts have updated the regulatory frameworks for the following countries: Cameroon, Germany, Lithuania, Mali, Nigeria, Portugal, Senegal, South Africa, and Switzerland. We are also delighted to announce the participation of new countries in the TRREE training, namely: Argentina, Armenia, France, Kenya, and Poland.

The new regulatory frameworks on TRREE differ from the previous national supplements in content, structure, and form. They now include four chapters, one of which is entirely new and focuses on the topics of databases and biobanks:

• Chapter 1: Regulatory framework for research involving human beings and types of regulated research;
• Chapter 2: Research ethics committees;
• Chapter 3: Evaluation of a research project;
• Chapter 4: Health databases and biobanks.

As before, each question is paired with an answer that includes the applicable legal bases and a commentary to help the understanding (particularly for non-legal professionals). Moreover, the national or local regulatory frameworks are now structured in such a way as to support comparative legal analysis across these different countries. It is now possible to compare answers to the same question across several countries or territories in your preferred language. The regulatory frameworks have been designed in the national language of each country or territory, yet the comparison tool provides an automatic translation of the answers. For more details on the new features of TRREE, refer to ‘How to use the national or local regulatory frameworks’.

The updated TRREE regulatory frameworks can serve as educational tools to broaden users' knowledge of the regulatory landscape for research in a particular country or territory. Moreover, they offer an innovative opportunity for conducting comparative legal research, thus strengthening knowledge in the field on both a national and international scale. TRREE's aim remains to promote access to relevant laws and regulations applicable in research involving human beings, to ensure the respect and protection of participants and their communities.

TRREE TEAM