Research institutions in North East (NE) India provide very little publicly available information about their institutional ethics committees (IECs) or the standard operating procedures (SOPs) that guide them. To address this gap, a review was carried out across fourteen biomedical and health research institutes in the region. Only twelve of these had formally created IECs. These committees drew members from varied professional backgrounds and sectors, yet only eight institutions demonstrated age diversity and only seven showed balanced gender representation. In nearly all committees (11 of 12), the chairperson came from outside the host institution, and in ten cases their qualifications aligned with the requirements outlined in the Indian Council of Medical Research’s National Ethical Guidelines for Biomedical and Health Research Involving Human Participants, 2017. Half of the IECs lacked a lay person altogether. SOPs existed in nine of the institutions; however, only three of these covered the full spectrum of protocol review categories—exemption, expedited review, and review by the full committee. Six SOPs called for quarterly meetings, and seven explicitly mentioned declaration of conflict of interest (CoI). Five specified that members with a CoI could not vote, while seven described logistical provisions such as office space, staffing, and budgeting. Notably, just two of the twelve IECs had completed the registration process. Overall, the assessment shows that IEC structures and their governing SOPs in NE India remain far below recommended standards, with most committees not adhering to provisions laid out in the ICMR 2017 guidelines and many still unregistered.
