Yesterday in the House of Commons, Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear announced that researchers and students applying for funds from any of the federal research granting agency programs will now be asked to sign a consent form to disclose personal information should they be found to be in serious breach of agency policy. We understand that the Minister had asked the councils to explore and resolve issues around disclosure of personal information, as part of their development of revised research integrity policy. AUCC was informed of the new disclosure policy just prior to the Minister’s announcement. Discussion of disclosure was not part of the consultation process councils have carried out with stakeholders on their soon-to-be released revised integrity policy. Information about the new requirement is being sent to your vice-presidents for research from the councils.Serious breaches are extremely rare but when they arise, they are deemed serious enough to warrant loss of eligibility to the individual on an indeterminate basis. Until now the councils have not released the names publicly.
While the vast majority of university research in Canada is conducted with the utmost integrity, a very small number of cases have had a high profile in the media. There are growing concerns that these cases are leading or could lead to some distrust in the transparency and accountability for the use of public funds for research and that disclosing personal information would provide a stronger deterrent for any misuse of funding. The revised integrity policy, to be included under the new Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research, is expected to be announced December 5, 2011. It will clarify the very limited types of cases that would be serious enough to warrant the release of personal information. Institutions will still receive allegations; conduct any investigations; and submit findings of any breaches to the agencies. A newly formed Panel on Responsible Conduct of Research will analyze all breaches and provide recommendations to the appropriate research granting agency president on the recourse that is needed in order to be proportional and specific to each breach – including cases where the panel believes the breach is serious enough to warrant disclosure of the name of the researcher/student.
Christine Tausig Ford
Vice-President and Chief Operating Officer / Vice-présidente et administratrice en chefAssociation of Universities and Colleges of Canada/Association des universités et collèges duCanada
350 rue Albert St., bureau/suite 600 Ottawa ON Canada K1R 1B1
Tel/tél #290
Fax (613) 563-2416
E-mail/courriel: ctausig@aucc.ca
