Scholarly Communications

The general goals of research involving human subjects are to advance human welfare, knowledge and understanding. Georgian College supports research that enhances curriculum development and renewal, creates learning for our staff and students, and may generate revenue/resources for the college. The Georgian College Research Ethics Board (REB) serves to approve proposed or ongoing research involving human subjects that is conducted within or by members of Georgian College.

These guidelines relate mainly to ethical justification and scientific validity of research; ethical review; informed consent; vulnerability ­ of individuals, groups, communities and populations; women as research subjects; equity regarding burdens and benefits; choice of control in clinical trials; confidentiality; compensation for injury; strengthening of national or local capacity for ethical review; and obligations of sponsors to provide health-care services.

These two documents aim to establish standards for authors and editors of scholarly research publications and to describe responsible research reporting and publishing practice. Given the special issues raised by research involving humans or animals, which may not apply to other types of
research, both statements include a specific section on these.

This document has been developed for individuals and organizations involved in health-related research with human participants, including biomedical, behavioural, social science, and epidemiological research (throughout this document, the term “research” is meant to include, and refers to, all of these domains). In particular, this document is intended to provide guidance to the research ethics committees (RECs) on which organizations rely to review and oversee the ethical aspects of research, as well as to the researchers who design and carry out health research studies.

The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS or the Policy) 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), or “the Agencies.”
This Policy expresses the Agencies’ continuing commitment to the people of Canada to promote
the ethical conduct of research involving humans.It has been informed, in part, by leading inter-national ethics norms, all of which may help, in some measure, to guide Canadian researchers, in Canada and abroad, in the conduct of research involving humans.

This Declaration addresses ethical issues related to medicine, life sciences and associated technologies as applied to human beings, taking into account their social, legal and environmental dimensions.
Some of the declaration aims are:
(a) to provide a universal framework of principles and procedures to guide States in the formulation of their legislation, policies or other instruments in the field of bioethics;
(b) to guide the actions of individuals, groups, communities, institutions and corporations, public and private;
(c) to promote respect for human dignity and protect human rights, by ensuring respect for the life of human beings, and fundamental freedoms, consistent with international human rights law;
(d) to recognize the importance of freedom of scientific research and the benefits derived from scientific and technological developments, while stressing the need for such research and developments to occur within the framework of ethical principles set out in this Declaration and to respect human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms.