Any clinical or behavioural research study that involves human participants requires ethics review and approval to ensure that the research meets federal ethical requirements and protects the welfare of study participants.

Research ethics review is a process of initial and ongoing review and monitoring of research involving human participants. The review is conducted by a Research Ethics Board (REB), made up of an independent committee of experts who provide initial review and ongoing monitoring of the study.

PHSA and its agencies are subject to The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans. This is a joint policy of Canada’s three federal research agencies – the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Ethics reviews for research conducted at PHSA agencies are done under the auspices of the University of British Columbia.  UBC Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia Research Ethics Board (UBC C&W REB) reviews both clinical and behavioural research projects conducted on the Oak Street campus.

Learn more about PHSA and BC Women’s Hospital institutional approval process. Ethics applications are submitted through UBC’s RISe system.

Ethics training

Students, staff and principal investigators at the WHRI are required to take the online TCPS 2 Tutorial Course on Research Ethics (CORE).

Guidance: Does my research project need ethics approval?

Guidance: Does the UBC C&W REB have jurisdiction over my research project?

Links to additional research ethics resources:

•  Health Canada Clinical Trials Manual
• UBC Research Ethics Policies and Standard Operating Procedures
• Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia
• Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act

• UBC Research Ethics Resources
• Ethics at PHSA
• PHSA Institutional Approvals

BC Children’s Hospital BioBank | BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute (bcchr.ca)

The aim of the BC Children’s Hospital BioBank is to provide researchers with high quality samples obtained from patients in an ethical manner. Patients give their consent for their samples to be used in research projects.

WHRI Funding Updates

This page is maintained by Eric Lussier, our Research Development Facilitator, and contains up to date information about funding opportunities.

REDCap E-Consent

REDCap E-Consent is a platform for consenting research subjects on a computer-based consent rather than traditional paper documentation. The e-consent can be implemented as a REDCap survey. It is a general mechanism that allows you to implement your e-consent process by providing standardized tools to facilitate a virtual consent process.

Detailed instructions on how to use the e-consent framework

Culturally Safe and Trauma-Informed Practices for Researchers during COVID-19

1. This note offers considerations for:
   Relationship building and community engagement in First Nations research from a lens of
   cultural safety and humility and a trauma-informed approach.
2. How researchers can be guided by cultural safety and humility and trauma-informed
   practice.
3. Respectful research with First Nations Peoples and communities during COVID-19.

CIHR – Integrating Sex & Gender into Health Research Course

These three modules will teach you how to

• Distinguish between and define sex and gender in health research;
• Identify sex and gender differences in the mechanism, disease or treatment under study;
• Identify methods for integrating sex and gender variables in health research contexts; and
• Assess a research protocol or publication based on the integration or omission of sex and/or gender.

CIHR – How to integrate sex and gender into research

A series of definitions, learning modules, videos, and resources about integrating sex and gender into various types of research.

Sex and Gender Checklist