Health institute will not introduce ethics vice-president

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research will not introduce a vice-president of ethics, as recommended by the agency’s Task Force on Ethics Reform.

The task force described the creation of a strong leadership position on ethics as the “key recommendation from which other recommendations flow”. But CIHR’s response concludes that introducing an independent vice-president-level position is “neither operationally feasible nor ideal”, because “it is not integrated within CIHR leadership and decision-making”.

Instead, the agency has named Jane Aubin, vice-president research and chief scientific officer, as its “formal champion of ethics”. It will also expand the membership and mandate of its Standing Committee on Ethics to include Aubin, two scientific directors, two institute advisory board ethics designates, and senior staff from the CIHR Ethics Office and the Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research.