Background Ethics in research is one of the core pillars of responsible conduct of research which promotes good research practices and protects the rights of participants. Good ethical practices in the conduct of research is essential for high quality research. Research has shown a disparity in ethical review capacity in Africa with most countries not having national ethics frameworks with few or none-existing national ethics committees to oversee the conduct of research in these countries.

Methods Since 1947, Medical Research Council Unit, The Gambia at LSHTM was the only research institution in the country conducting biomedical research. The country had one independent research ethics committee that was established in 1980 - The Gambia Government/MRCG Joint Ethics Committee. The committee is the only recognised Ethics Committee (EC) in The Gambia.

While the in-country research ecosystem is registering a significant growth, policies and procedures at national and institutional levels to support the ethical conduct of research are lacking. To fully identify the capacity needs, a situational analysis of the current ethical and regulatory review capacity in academic and research institutions was conducted through the ERC Grant. The assessment was done by administering a questionnaire to academic and research institutions conducting health research. The study also conducted a workshop for institutions that have functional ethics committees during which a focus group discussion was conducted, and a questionnaire administered to have an in depth understanding of capacity gaps that exist within the existing seven committees conducting review in country.

Results Results showed significant gap in the awareness of ethics and regulatory requirements required when conducting research.

Conclusion The findings also showed that there is need for formal training on research ethics and the review process for ethics committees; the need to train a set of ethics administrators and establishing a national ethics secretariat.