Canadian Institutes of Health policy in the works

[Ray English <Ray.English@oberlin.edu>]

See:
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/30818.html
and below.

Ray  English
Director of Libraries
Oberlin College



CIHR Policy in Development - Access to Products of Research

(2006-04-03) CIHR's strategic plan, "Blueprint for Health 
Research and Innovation", states that CIHR's vision is to 
position Canada as a world leader in the creation and use of 
knowledge for health benefits. In an effort to achieve this 
long-term strategic outcome, CIHR is initiating a process to 
develop a research policy that will promote access to the 
knowledge and resources generated from CIHR-funded research. 
Currently, CIHR encourages recipients of research support to make 
the results of all research publicly available. However, CIHR 
does not have a formal policy governing access to the products of 
CIHR-funded research, including physical products, research data 
and published results.

The aim is to establish a policy that will both help researchers 
gain access to the products of research and support CIHR's 
efforts in facilitating the translation and use of knowledge, 
while taking into account ethical and legal considerations. 
Furthermore, as a recipient of public funds there is an 
obligation to Canadians to ensure that the results and products 
of research supported by CIHR are disseminated as widely as 
possible so that all parties benefit from these research 
outcomes.

The policy governing access to the products of research has been 
separated into three broad categories:

    1. physical products of research (i.e., cell lines, DNA 
libraries, PCR primers);
    2. structural and functional data typically deposited in 
public databases (i.e., genomic data, DNA sequences, protein 
sequences);
    3. peer-reviewed published results.

CIHR has invited a number of Canadian health researchers to serve 
on an Advisory Committee, which will guide the development and 
implementation of this policy. In the near future, CIHR will be 
launching an initial online survey, with a series of prompts and 
questions regarding the general scope and content of a proposed 
policy. Feedback from the broad health research community will be 
carefully considered by the Advisory Committee during policy 
development. We welcome comments from the full range of 
stakeholders including other government departments and research 
agencies, health research societies, health charities, and 
industry partners. Once a detailed draft policy has been 
prepared, it will be posted on our web site for a second round of 
public consultations. Please visit CIHR's web site in the coming 
weeks to see more information about this initiative.

If you have any questions related to CIHR's plans to develop a 
policy concerning Access to the Products of Research, please 
contact Geoff Hynes, Research Officer, ghynes@cihr-irsc.gc.ca, 
(613) 952-8965.

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