Researchers are responsible for obtaining all required University and respective agency approvals for research, ensuring that their research is conducted in accordance with approved protocols and that they adhere to all reporting requirements.

Approvals include but are not limited to research involving the following:

USask Requirements for Research

• For research with Human participants contact the Research Ethics Office, Behavioral and Biomedical Research Ethics Boards (BehREB, BioREB)
• For research with Animal subjects contact Animal Care and Research Support
• For Fieldwork Travel and International Student Mobility see the linked policies.
• For research involving Biohazards contact Biosafety Permitting Process and see the Research Safety Website for information, training, reporting
• For research involving Radioisotopes connect with the Radiation Safety Permitting Process

Tri-Agency Requirements for Research

• Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans – TCPS2 (2018)
• Canada’s Food and Drugs Act
• Canadian Council on Animal Care
• Agency policies related to the Impact Assessment Act;
• Licenses for research in the field;
• Laboratory Biosafety Guidelines;
• Controlled Goods Program;
• Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) Regulations

Researchers are responsible for ensuring students and research staff are carefully supervised and trained in the conduct of research, including experiments, processing of acquired data, recording of data and other results, interpretation of results, publication, and the storage and protection of research records and materials.

Researchers are expected to provide training and mentoring to their trainees and research personnel in responsible conduct of research.

College of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (CGPS) Resources for supervisors and mentors:

• CGPS Graduate Supervision Handbook
• CGPS Student Supervisor Agreement

External Resources:

• Lee, Adrian, Carina Dennis and Philip Campbell Nature’s guide for mentors Nature (London), 06/2007, Volume 447, Issue 7146

Researchers are responsible for exercising scholarly and scientific rigour and integrity in recording, analyzing and interpreting data, and in reporting and publishing data and findings. This includes keeping complete and accurate records of data, methodologies and findings, including graphs and images, in accordance with the applicable funding agreements, institutional policies, laws, regulations and professional or disciplinary standards in a manner that will allow verification or replication of the work by others.

Researchers should access institutional expert resources and supports to secure their data and to protect the privacy of any individuals whose personal information has been obtained as part of any research activities as required by the:

• USask Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Policy,
• The Local Authority Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act,
• The Health Information Protection Act, and the
• Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans  (TCPS-2, 2018)

USask resources:

• For information on how decisions are made about research data, see the Data Governance Framework
• To understand how to manage research data appropriately, see the Data Classifications
• To learn more about which services are best for storing and sharing university data, see the Data Handling and Storage Guidelines

Please note: Researchers will be required to submit DMPs with applications for Tri-Agency funding beginning in Spring 2022. USask is working on an institutional Research Data Management Strategy anticipated in spring of 2023.

Researchers are responsible for respecting the inherent and collective sovereign rights of First Nations, Métis and Inuit people to ownership and governance of their data.

USask resources:

• 4 Seasons of Reconciliation: a short course about the Indigenous Peoples of Canada.
• Office of the Vice Provost Indigenous Engagement (OVPIE)

External resources:

• TCPS2 (2018) Chapter 9: Research Involving the First Nations, Inuit and Metis Peoples of Canada
• The First Nations Principles of OCAP® (ownership, control, access and possession) website offers information and an online course to educate researchers working with First Nations data
• Principles of Ethical Métis Research
• National Inuit Strategy on Research
• CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance are an international statement on Indigenous data sovereignty created by The Global Indigenous Data Alliance
• SSHRC Indigenous Research Statement of Principles
• Final Report on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada

Researchers are required to manage funds acquired for the support of Research as required by the Tri-Agency Guide to Financial Administration, research funding agreements and USask policies on Research Administration.

Grant fund expenditures must:

• contribute to the direct costs of the research/activities for which the funds were awarded, with benefits directly attributable to the grant;
• not be provided by the administering institution to their research personnel;
• be effective and economical and
• not result in personal gain for members of the research team.

USask resources:

• Research Administration Policy
• Research Administration Procedures
• Institutional Costs of Research Policy
• Institutional Costs of Research Procedures

External resources:

• Tri-Agency Guide to Financial Administration

Researchers are responsible for including as authors, with their consent, all those and only those who have materially or conceptually contributed to, and share responsibility for, the contents of the publication or document, in a manner consistent with their respective contributions and authorship policies of relevant publications.

Researchers are responsible for acknowledging, in addition to authors, all contributors and contributions to research, including writers, funders and sponsors.

External resources:

• All reputable publishers post their criteria for authorship, usually on the ethics pages of the journal. Authors should review these criteria for all papers they submit for publication.
• Many biomedical journals use the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors criteria for Defining the Role of Authors and Contributors.
• The CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) is used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scientific scholarly publication.  This taxonomy has been adopted by major publishers such as Elsevier, Oxford University Press, Springer, Wolters Kluwer, Sage, MIT Press, BMJ, Wiley VCH and many others.

Researchers are responsible for reporting conflicts of interest as per the University’s policy on Conflict of Interest.

• USask Conflict of Interest Policy
• USask Researchers holding funds from U.S Public Health Services must follow Procedures for Compliance with the U.S. Public Health Service Financial Conflict of Interest Regulations

Researchers are responsible for disclosing to the Associate Vice-President Research any breach of this Policy of which they have become aware.

Contacts:

• Dr. Darcy Marciniuk, Associate Vice President Research​ darcy.marciniuk@usask.ca​  Phone: (306) 844-1148
• Dr. Trever Crowe, Research Integrity Officer ​ trever.crowe@usask.ca​  Phone: (306) 966-8448 
• Dr. Diane Martz, Responsible Conduct of Research Specialist  ​ diane.martz@usask.ca​ Phone: (306) 612-2451

USask also has Safe Disclosure Reporting at Confidence Line if you prefer to make an anonymous complaint.