12th ANREC proceedings (summary)

Abstract

.The 12th Annual National Research Ethics Conference (ANREC), organized by the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology (UNCST), was held on 21-22 October 2025 in Kampala, Uganda, under the theme "Communities as Partners: Strengthening Community Engagement in Research." The conference brought together 706 participants from Uganda and the region to discuss contemporary ethical issues in human and animal research. Deliberations emphasized community engagement as a fundamental pillar of ethical, inclusive, and responsive research, advocating a shift from conducting research on communities to conducting research with communities. Major discussions focused on post-research responsibilities, post-trial access, ethical challenges in emergency and outbreak research, social and behavioral research ethics, traditional and alternative medicine research, animal welfare, emerging technologies, adaptive clinical trial designs, and community-centered research governance. The conference highlighted the need for meaningful community participation throughout the research lifecycle, strengthened ethical and regulatory frameworks, equitable benefit-sharing, accountability in dissemination of research findings, and alignment with the revised Declaration of Helsinki. Recommendations called for institutionalizing community engagement, strengthening post-research obligations, enhancing ethical oversight, promoting indigenous knowledge systems, and advancing equitable research partnerships to improve research quality, trust, and public benefi