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Release of Funds

Release of Funds

Ethics Compliance and Release of Funds

The Tri-Council is comprised of the following three federal research agencies, created and funded by the people of Canada:

1) The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
2) The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
3) The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)

These agencies promote ethical research standards and conduct or research involving humans with TCPS as the benchmark. When funded by any of the three agencies, adherence to TCPS is strictly required.

The Tri-Agency Agreement on Administration of Agency Grants and Awards by Research Institutions requires researchers to have an active Human Research Ethics Board (HREB) approval in place before they may receive access to funding for research involving human participants.

Mount Royal University believes in maintaining high ethical standards in research and scholarly activities. If you are a Mount Royal University researcher or someone who wishes to conduct research at Mount Royal using human participants, or human health information, proper ethical clearance needs to be secured for your funded or unfunded research.

Similarly, ethics must be obtained for animal-based teaching and research to ensure compliance with the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) guidelines and policies.

The Release of Funds process enables researchers to access their funding pending preparation and approval of a fully developed ethics application.

Release of Funds Process

There can be times where the first months, or years, of a research project do not involve human or animal participants. In these situations, preparing (and reviewing) a complete ethics application during the development phase of the project may be impossible. Researchers may still receive access to their project funds via a request for the Release of Funds.

The Release of Funds is valid for up to one year. In cases of a multi-year award where research will not begin until later in Year Two or Year Three, the Release of Funds Agreement will need not be renewed.

It is the responsibility of the researcher to either renew the Release of Funds Agreement, or obtain ethics approval prior to the Release of Funds Agreement expiry date.

If the Release of Funds Agreement expires prior to renewal or the ethics approval is still being obtained, the ORSCE will cease to release any remaining funds until the renewal has been updated, or ethics approval has been obtained.


To apply:

1. Complete and submit the Release of Funds request form to our Research Compliance Officer, Priscilla Wamucii, at hreb@mtroyal.ca. To access this fillable form, click on the link, download the document to your computer, and complete it in Adobe Reader.

2. The Research Compliance Officer will send a Release of Funds Agreement to you based on the information you provided in your Release of Funds request for your review and signature.

3. The Research Compliance Officer will advise the Office of Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement when the signed Release of Funds Agreement has been received.

4. The Office of Research, Scholarship and Community Engagement will open your new research account and you may begin your research activities.

Approval of the Release of Funds request will result in the generation of a 'Release of Funds Agreement' in which the researcher explicitly agrees they will not conduct any research until after they have obtained approval for the research.