The Health Research Governance Department at the Ministry of Public Health is responsible for organizing and monitoring health research in the State of Qatar. It is concerned with the development and implementation of policies, ethical guidelines and regulations for health research projects that include social and behavioral research, chronic disease research, communicable and non-communicable disease research, clinical trials, biomedical research, sports, genetic, personalized medicine and biological specimen research, as well as animal and laboratory research.

As indicated in the Amiri Decree (14) of 2019, the formation of the Health Research Governance Department is to develop policies and frameworks that define the national strategic direction for health research (human-animal-laboratory), as well as support research activities, researchers and research infrastructure. In addition to meeting the research needs and supporting practical discoveries and important medical achievements that will improve the healthcare and therapeutics in the State of Qatar. 

That is in addition to the role of the department in coordinating, simplifying and improving the policies and requirements related to the conduct and monitoring of research carried out on humans, tissues, stem cells and molecular genetics projects, as well as developing a database to collect and analyze research activities locally and internationally. To continue its support for biomedical and health research, the Ministry of Public Health announces the launch of an official Health Research Governance platform that serves as a gateway to facilitate interaction between the Department and all institutions and research facilities in Qatar and abroad. 

The portal includes several services, the most important of which are the registration and assurance of institutional ethical committees for human (IRB), animal (IACUC) and biosafety (IBC) research. In addition to the registration services of researchers and administrators involved in research work, and other services related to the registration of activities related to seminars, conferences and training workshops in Qatar. The portal which can be accessed here is a key database for the follow-up and documentation of all official work related to health research that will contribute to the realization of future knowledge aspirations and expansion in the size of the research sector in the State of Qatar.