Research Ethics BC
Information for Researchers
British Columbia’s harmonized ethics review model is now in use by all BC health authorities, most research universities and many colleges. Research Ethics BC has made the following resources available to support researchers and research participants in understanding and implementing harmonized approaches to ethics review.
View all Research Ethics BC resources
Webinars
Research Ethics BC provides training and development opportunities for researchers and project managers in a variety of topic areas.
Register and gain access to PREP
To access PREP for harmonized studies, researchers must first create a UBC CWL account to access UBC’s RISe, which hosts PREP.
If you have no current or previous affiliations with UBC, create a basic account for RISe. You will not be able to self-register for a RISe account with a basic account, so the next step is to contact the RISe support team.
Research Ethics BC Network
Research Ethics BC currently works with 24 institutional research ethics boards (REBs) across BC in working toward province-wide harmonized research ethics review processes.
Researchers within the Research Ethics BC network can submit their “harmonized” or multi-jurisdictional research ethics application through the Provincial Research Ethics Platform (PREP).
If you are a new researcher within the network, please contact Research Ethics BC for an initial consultation.
If you have already completed your PREP platform application, please see each institution’s page for additional information and guidance on how to apply for a research ethics review at their location.
Research across multiple institutions will need to meet the requirements of the institutions that you will
be working in, or with. Please review the requirements for being a principal investigator and research team composition across the health authorities and secondary institutions within the Research Ethics BC
Network.
BC Cancer
BC Children’s and Women’s
BC Institute of Technology
Camosun College
Capilano University
Douglas College
First Nations Health Authority
Fraser Health
Fraser Valley
Interior Health
Island Health
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Langara College
Northern Health
Royal Roads University
Simon Fraser University
Thompson Rivers University
UBC BREB (behavioural and social science/humanities research)
UBC – Okanagan Behavioural REB
UBC Providence Health Care REB
University of Northern British Columbia
University of Victoria
Vancouver Island University
Research Ethics Network Contact Information
Please click the button below for up-to-date contact information. Alternatively, if you would like to update any information please reach out to a member of our team at researchethics@healthresearchbc.ca
Research ethics during COVID-19
In March 2020, COVID-19 was declared as a pandemic and a public health emergency in the province of British Columbia. As research funding became available for COVID-19, Research Ethics BC and the research ethics community created processes to enable researchers to respond quickly and effectively. We also created a go-to location for researchers and research ethics boards to find information and guidance.
For more information, get in touch with our team at researchethics@healthresearchbc.ca.