Office of Safety, Health & Environment


Research Safety Compliance Form Submission


1. Introduction
The Workplace Safety and Health Act (Risk Management) Regulations, enforced by the Ministry of Manpower require, all principal investigators (PIs) and academic laboratory supervisors to develop and implement a safety management system for their lab-based or/and field research activities.

PIs (not certified under the Laboratory OHS certification scheme) who are starting new research grants are required to conduct risk assessment to identify the safety and health risks associated with the project and then update/forward to OSHE for review and final approval by Institutional Laboratory Safety Committee (ILSC) or Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC). IBC approves life science related research projects and ILSC approves non-life science related projects.

PIs awarded certification to the Laboratory OHS certification scheme need not submit individual project risk assessments for new grant-based projects. However, PIs must notify OSHE of new projects and submit the Lab certification form to apply for the release of funds for the new projects. If their project involves animal work and/or the use of regulated agents, they would also need to submit additional forms.
2 Submission of new applications and subsequent amendments

With effect from 20 November 2012, all new forms related to research grant safety approval and subsequent amendments must be done online through the Integrated Online Research Compliance (iORC) system. Hard copy submissions with signatures of PI and HODs will no longer be required. Details on how to use iORC system can be found here .
3 Integrated Online Research Compliance (iORC) system

login

iORC system is also accessible via the Staff & Student Portal

To access iORC from outside NUS, you need to login using NUS WEB VPN ( http://webvpn.nus.edu.sg/staffportal/ )
4

iORC application submission and approval process

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5 Selection of forms
iORC can be used for the following:

To obtain safety approval for research grants

listing For PIs certified under the lab OHS scheme - complete lab certification form
listing For PIs not certified under the lab OHS certification scheme - complete applicable risk assessment sections
To obtain approval for conducting
listing Animal research
listing Field research
listing Diving research
listing To make an amendment for an approved application submitted through iORC

For new submissions to be done using iORC

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For Making an amendment

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6 Roadshow slides and FAQ on iORC

7 Enquiries
For enquiries, please send emails to OSHE Risk Assessment mailbox: oshbox4@nus.edu.sg