How to Collaborate with SEACO

Requests for SEACO Data

SEACO is committed to data sharing in order to maximise the dissemination of the findings and to produce high-quality science for the benefit of the Segamat community and moving forward, global public health.

If you are interested in getting access to SEACO’s data for any purpose, please fill out and submit this online form: SEACO Data Application Form.

There are three options within the form which specifies the purpose of accessing the data:

  • For Manuscript Proposal
  • For Conference Presentation
  • For General Interest

Code books of different SEACO projects are available here.

Requests for all Manuscript Proposals will go through the SEACO Writing Committee in order to ensure that:

  1. All investigators/sponsors of the data are appropriately acknowledged.
  2. The context of data collection is accurately represented and that findings are presented objectively, and with scientific rigour that does not jeopardise collaborations and partnerships with the Segamat community.
  3. Redundant publication is avoided (others may have submitted requests to undertake similar analyses for publication).
  4. Dissemination of SEACO data is expedited in a timely fashion (topics for analyses and publications will remain embargoed for a period of time, after which, other researchers interested in publishing in that area will be given the opportunity to do so).
  5. There is a clear statement of responsibility from all authors on content.

Tin Tin Su is the Principal Investigator for the Writing Committee on any particular manuscript requests in SEACO, in addition to the designated representatives of any projects from which data is requested.

SEACO’s policy regarding the authorship of manuscripts can be found here. Once you have submitted the SEACO Data Application Form, any questions or clarifications will be sent within one week of review. If the application is approved, the data will be released within four to six weeks from the date of approval. Note that if the nature of the proposal requires further institutional ethics approval, this timeline may be further delayed, in which case, you will need to write to the committee four months in advance. Feedback from the lead author will be provided within four weeks of submission for peer review and publications.

It is ***critical*** that the deadline for draft submissions is adhered to, in order to ensure timely output production. Deadline extensions would require a negotiation with the committee, failing which, the data collected may be released to others who are in the position to perform necessary analyses and produce the manuscripts instead.

In the case that the required data is not readily available, data requests will be subject to a fee based on the estimated time required to retrieve and process it, or any further costs for clerical and statistical support and delivery. The applicant would need to bear these costs.

Research Project Collaboration

Parties who are interested in developing a research proposal to collaborate with SEACO will also need to submit the SEACO Proposal Expression of Interest form. It will need to address the seven collaboration criteria (refer to Appendix 1) set by the SEACO Scientific Advisory Group (SEACO SAG) and include any questions or clarifications needed for information not already provided in SEACO’s Platform Profile.

You will receive a response on whether working with SEACO would be useful for your research. If it is deemed so, further details may be required by the SEACO SAG.

Further details include:

  • Research project title
  • Background of Principal Investigator
  • Brief Rationale for Research Project
  • Research Questions/Hypothesis
  • Methods
  • Required SEACO Variables
  • Ethical Clearance and Security of Data
  • Budget and Funding Sources
  • Study Personnel

Proposals must address a significant research question. It should be led by a team with the appropriate disciplinary expertise, have scientific merit and be able to be justified in the use of SEACO’s platform.

Proposals will need to include the necessary resources to be supported by the SEACO infrastructure. Data requests will need to cover the costs of data extraction and the support required to conduct the analysis. Proposals for primary data collection will need to cover the item detailed in the Costing Template (This is a Work In Progress).

For proposals to be fully costed for, they will need to cover:

  • Directly incurred costs: These are costs specific to the project which include full gross salaries and benefits, where applicable, of staff required for the successful completion of the research project. Additional staff, equipment, travel and subsistence, or costs associated with community-related activities and any reimbursements, or tokens for the participants, should also be included.
  • Directly allocated costs: These are costs that are charged on the basis of estimates and include the percentage time of investigators working on the research, or related supervision. These also include “bench fees”.
  • Indirect costs: These are the resources that do not necessarily attribute to individual research but are the critical overheads that support the research platform. These are charged at 18% of the total grant.

The SEACO SAG will review and approve all proposals and may meet up to six times a year for this purpose.

The SAG will provide reviews, comments, and/or feedback, and advice on the proposals to SEACO based on the collaboration criteria. The SAG will communicate directly to the interested party with clear direction on the next steps.

Upon approval by the SAG, the research proposal will then need to be approved by the Monash University Human Research Ethics Committee. The application forms for approval are available at http://intranet.monash.edu.au/researchadmin/human/index.php

Timeline for Form Submissions

Both the SEACO Data Application Form and SEACO Proposal Expression of Interest will need to be submitted no later than midday (UTC/GMT +8) on the second Thursday of the month, in which they will be reviewed internally on the third Monday of every month.

Research Redundancy

Do ensure that your area of research or intended publication is not redundant within the context of SEACO. Please go through the following pages to check that this is not the case:

APPENDIX 1 – SEACO SAG COLLABORATION CRITERIA

  1. Scientific Merit – please state the contribution your research will make to knowledge and provide evidence of scientific peer review (where applicable).
  2. Benefit to the community – please state the expected impact of your research on the SEACO community in Segamat.
  3. Value added to the SEACO platform – contribution to vision and mission – how will your research enhance the value of SEACO as a platform?
  4. Project fit with ongoing activities of SEACO – how will your project integrate with ongoing activities?
  5. Contribution to national and global health priorities – how does your project contribute to national and/or global research priorities?
  6. Financial viability and generation of income towards sustainability of SEACO – provide evidence that your project is fully costed and therefore can be feasibly conducted within SEACO.
  7. Support for capacity building in Public Health and HDSS research – how will your project contribute to improving skills, knowledge and capacity to the staff at SEACO and more broadly, to global public health and HDSS research?