Extension of Release Date and Expanded Opportunities to Comment on Revised Draft 2nd Edition of the TCPS

Ottawa (August 26, 2009)—In December 2008, the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics released a substantial revision to the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS) for public consultation.  The consultation period ended on June 30, 2009.

The Panel will release a revised version of the draft to the public for further comment in December 2009, followed by a 60-day period for written comments. The Panel intends to prepare a final draft based on those comments. In April 2010, the Panel will submit the final revision to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for their consideration.

The Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS) was jointly developed in 1998 by CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC. The Agencies formed the Panel in 2001 to interpret and promote the TCPS. The Panel’s mandate is to ensure that the TCPS evolves to keep pace with changes in research and society at large.