Canadian policy on reporting breaches of research integrity: When should Research Ethics Boards be informed?

ABSTRACT

In Canada, institutions that receive research funding from the three federal granting agencies must establish research ethics boards (REBs) to review the ethical acceptability of research involving humans. Institutions are also expected to promote the responsible conduct of research, fostering researchers’ abilities to act with integrity in the conduct of their research. Where a researcher fails to act with integrity in research with humans, institutional policies and procedures of the U15, Canada’s most research-intensive universities, vary in the extent to which they involve their REBs in response to such breaches. Some make no mention of the REB, whereas others state that their REB should be provided with information relating to upheld allegations. In this paper, we argue that when allegations of research integrity breaches are corroborated, the institution’s REB should be identified as a party required to receive that information. Only then can REBs ensure compliance with research ethics standards, which is essential to maintain the public’s trust.

KEYWORDS:

• Research ethics
• research integrity
• responsible conduct of research
• research ethics in university contexts
• public trust

Acknowledgments

The authors with to thank Dr. Michael C. King for his review and comments on early versions of this manuscript and Ms. Catherine Paquetfor her help with policy identification.

Authors’ contributions

SAP and MAS contributed to writing the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript

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Not applicable

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable, no human participants