Mr. Speaker, an international scan of selected health research funders was conducted to identify ethics-related governance structures and other features that would inform a renewed approach to delivering on CIHR’s ethics mandate. A small number of international health research funders were selected for their comparability with CIHR as a research funding arm of government. The selected funders were: the Medical Research Council, United Kingdom; the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia; the National Institutes of Health, United States of America; and the European Commission, European Union. The organizations were contacted by email to confirm that the information gathered was up to date. This scan was provided in briefing materials for the February 28-29, 2014, meeting of the CIHR’s governing council.
The scan indicated that in terms of overall mandate and structures, the selected health research funders and CIHR share similarities and differences. With respect to ethics-related features, the scan indicated that a commitment to ethics is evident in these health research funders through a range of governance structures and other features. The main conclusions drawn from this international scan are that: several models are used for incorporating ethics at the core of research funding organizations; ethics leadership is found at the highest levels of organizations, but executives do not tend to be ethics experts; and committees and chairs of committees have ethics expertise to provide high quality advice.
It is important to note that the federal research agencies, namely CIHR, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, have joined their efforts over the last ten years to promote high ethical standards of conduct in research in Canada. These efforts have resulted in the development of the tri-council policy on ethical conduct of research involving humans and in the creation of a panel of research ethics responsible for addressing the evolving needs of the three agencies in promoting the ethics of research involving humans. This panel is composed of experts and is supported by a permanent secretariat of eight staff. In addition, in 2011, CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC jointly created the panel on responsible conduct of research as part of a collaborative objective to ensure a coherent and uniform approach for promoting responsible conduct in research.
With regard to the recommendations, in 2013-14, CIHR’s governing council discussed on several occasions the advice and recommendations of the task force on ethics. In 2013, the council directed CIHR management, including CIHR’s science council, to develop an ethics action plan for addressing the issues raised by the task force through an approach that would address both leadership issues and issues of integration of ethics at the core of CIHR’s business.
All CIHR’s institute advisory board ethics designates had the opportunity to comment on the ethics action plan and to address ethics issues at the IAB’s meetings. The CIHR scientific directors, who receive advice from their IAB, as heads of institutes, reported to CIHR’s science council, as the accountable body, on IAB’s recommendations. In October 2013, the science council ethics action plan developed by CIHR’s management was unanimously endorsed by the science council for recommendation to the governing council for approval. This action plan identified the chief scientific officer/vice president research, knowledge translation as CIHR's champion of the CIHR ethics function.
The CIHR standing committee on ethics, a committee created and mandated by CIHR’s governing council to identify ethical issues of strategic relevance with respect to health and health research, has been consulted on the ethics action plan and the co-chair of the CIHR standing committee on ethics actively participated in the discussion that took place at a governing council meeting on this matter. CIHR’s governing council is the accountable structure, as determined by the CIHR Act, for developing CIHR's strategic directions, goals, and policies, including as they relate to ethics issues.
Considering that ethics is inherent to health research excellence, CIHR is fully committed to strengthening the culture of ethics in research, including scientific integrity, in all of its programs. This is why CIHR is expanding the membership of the governing council standing committee on ethics and appointed its chief scientific officer/vice president as champion of ethics at CIHR. More information regarding CIHR’s ethics action plan is available at: http://www.cihr.ca/e/48037.html.
