Research ethics consultation services (RECS), which function as an advisory service to facilitate the resolution of complex ethical issues in clinical research, have been proliferating over the last decade. However, the qualification of an individual who provides RECS, or “a research ethics consultant,” has not been thoroughly investigated, in contrast to healthcare ethics consultants, whose core competencies have been discussed and clarified to a great extent. In this study, we investigated core competencies necessary for research ethics consultants, referring to the core competency models of ethics consultants developed in the healthcare practice context, and propose a competency model for research ethics consultants.

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The name of the 12th author should be given as Naoki Sato, not Naoto Sato.