How To Apply
Ethics Review Flowchart
(click image to enlarge)
Research Ethics Review Process:
Initial Research Ethics Review
Questions and pre-submission review of draft work:
The Research Ethics Officer can review your draft work and identify potential difficulties that could be easily fixed before an application can be registered to go out for review to REB committee members (saving time!). Office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 3 pm. To book a time, applicants are asked to contact ethics@smu.ca.
Submission of a new application:
Please submit the fully completed application package to ethics@smu.ca. All appendices must be clearly labelled and reflect how they are referenced in the application form. Instructions and submission criteria is listed on the application form.
Research applications must be submitted to the REB by faculty (i.e., full-time, part-time, and adjunct), librarians and staff. All students must submit their applications to the REB via a faculty supervisor. Staff members must submit applications with a faculty supervisor or demonstrate to the REB that they have sufficient expertise to conduct a particular type of research independently. The latest version of the form listed on the REB website must be submitted for review.
Responding to the REB Chair's requests:
Applicants are asked to please "Reply all" when corresponding to the REB Chair to where the REB Chair's communication originated. This ensures that applicants are directly replying to the REB Chair and copying the Research Ethics Officer (ethics@smu.ca), in order to avoid delays.
In case of student research, the faculty supervisor must submit the response to the REB. Requests arriving from students only, cannot be processed by the REB.
Continuing Research Ethics Review
Reporting of new information and unanticipated issues, requests for a change to cleared research (Form 2), annual status report (Form 3) and end of study report (Form 5) are addressed to ethics.continuingreview@smu.ca, in order to avoid delays.
