Where applicable, applicants applying to CIHR grants and awards are bound by guidelines, developed by the three Canadian Research Agencies -- the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council) (SSHRC) --, the Canadian Council on Animal Care and Health Canada.
The CIHR Ethics Office is also responsible for developing and implementing broad-based policies and guidelines that govern issues such as non-compliance with research policies, to fulfill the ethical responsibilities that CIHR holds as a research funder. All Ethics Office publications are available at the Ethics Resources and Publications section of the CIHR Website.
Since its creation in 2000, CIHR has updated its Conflict of Interest policy to deal with conflicts of interest (COI) and the appearance of COI between CIHR and its many stakeholders. In 2003, CIHR created the Study Committee on issues of Confidentiality, Conflict of Interest and Privacy in Peer and Relevance Reviews (CCIP) to examine the legal and ethical checks and balances in place and to make recommendations for implementation for the peer-review system at CIHR. The recommendations made by the CCIP Committee were approved by the Standing Committee on the Oversight of Grants and Awards Competitions (2004) and implementation procedures are being developed (2005). The policy recommendations have been incorporated into the CIHR general policy on COI.
