Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A postdoctoral researcher on an NSERC Discovery Grant is alleged to have fabricated a dataset; the institution's Research Integrity Officer investigates under a policy meeting the Framework's minimum requirements and reports findings to NSERC.
- Is an instance
A SSHRC grant-fund mismanagement allegation that cannot be handled by the institution (because it concerns the institution's own conduct) is referred to SRCR, reviewed by PRCR, and decided by the SSHRC President.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
An REB application returned for revisions due to an inadequate risk-mitigation plan is a TCPS 2 / REB prospective ethics-review matter, not a Tri-Agency Framework breach investigation, unless the researcher proceeds without the required approval.
Editorial commentary
The Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research (often shortened to “the RCR Framework” or “the Framework”) is Canada’s national policy instrument for research integrity. It is issued jointly by 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) — collectively “the Agencies.” It governs any research that receives funding, in whole or in part, from one or more of the three Agencies, and it binds both the researchers who receive that funding and the institutions that administer it.
What the Framework actually does
The Framework has three distinct jobs: it sets out researcher responsibilities (integrity in applying for funds, managing funds, conducting research, and disseminating results); it sets minimum requirements for the RCR policy every institution must have in place to be eligible to administer Agency funds; and it specifies the process the Agencies themselves follow — through the Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research (SRCR) and the Interagency Advisory Panel on Responsible Conduct of Research (PRCR) — when an allegation of a breach reaches them directly. The current edition took effect in 2021, replacing the 2016 version.
Who administers it: SRCR and PRCR
Two Agency-level bodies share administration of the Framework, and they have distinct roles:
- Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research (SRCR) is the operational unit that receives and manages allegations referred to the Agencies, coordinates with institutions under the Agreement on the Administration of Agency Grants and Awards by Research Institutions, and prepares files for review.
- Interagency Advisory Panel on Responsible Conduct of Research (PRCR) (the successor body sometimes still referenced under its earlier name, the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics’ RCR counterpart) reviews the file SRCR prepares and makes a recommendation, which goes to the President of the relevant Agency (CIHR, NSERC, or SSHRC) for a final decision.
These are separate from, and should not be confused with, the Panel on Research Ethics (PRE) and its own secretariat, which steward TCPS 2 — see the dedicated comparison below.
What counts as a breach
The Framework defines breach categories that include: fabrication or falsification of data or results; plagiarism; invalid authorship (including denying authorship credit that is due, or including authors who have not made a genuine contribution); duplicate or redundant publication without disclosure; inadequate acknowledgement; mismanagement of Agency grant or award funds; and failure to comply with Agency policies governing the conduct of research, including policies on ethics, biosafety, and financial administration. A breach need not involve funded research misconduct in the classic fabrication/falsification/plagiarism sense — financial mismanagement of a Tri-Agency grant is a Framework breach in its own right.
How an investigation proceeds
In most cases an allegation is handled first at the institution, under an institutional RCR policy that must meet the Framework’s minimum requirements (an institution’s Research Integrity Officer (RIO) typically leads this process). The institution investigates, reaches a finding, and reports the outcome and any corrective actions to the relevant Agency or Agencies, consistent with the Agreement on the Administration of Agency Grants and Awards by Research Institutions. Where an allegation cannot be handled by the institution — for example, if it concerns the institution’s own conduct, or is referred directly — the complaint goes to SRCR, which manages the file; PRCR then reviews it and makes a recommendation to the applicable Agency President, who makes the final decision. Consequences can include a reprimand, repayment of funds, suspension or termination of funding, or a period of ineligibility for future Agency funding.
How this differs from TCPS 2
These two instruments are easy to conflate because both are Tri-Agency (CIHR/NSERC/SSHRC) and both concern research conduct, but they answer different questions at different points in the research lifecycle:
- TCPS 2 (the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans) is a prospective ethics-review standard: it governs how a Research Ethics Board (REB) evaluates and approves the design of human-participant research before it proceeds, and is stewarded by the Panel on Research Ethics (PRE) and its own secretariat.
- The Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research is a retrospective integrity-investigation standard: it governs how allegations that something already went wrong — fabrication, plagiarism, fund mismanagement, or a failure to follow required approvals — get investigated and resolved after the fact, and is administered by SRCR and PRCR.
A researcher can be fully TCPS 2/REB-compliant on a protocol and still face an RCR Framework investigation over an unrelated integrity allegation (e.g., data fabrication in the resulting paper). Conversely, proceeding with human-participant research without the REB approval TCPS 2 requires is itself a Framework breach — the two instruments intersect at exactly that point, but they are not the same mechanism and are not run by the same body.
Worked examples
Example 1: A postdoctoral researcher on an NSERC Discovery Grant is alleged to have fabricated a dataset in a co-authored manuscript. The host institution’s Research Integrity Officer opens an investigation under the institution’s own RCR policy, which meets the Framework’s minimum requirements; the institution’s finding and any corrective action are reported to NSERC per the Agreement on the Administration of Agency Grants and Awards by Research Institutions.
Example 2: An allegation of SSHRC grant-fund mismanagement cannot be handled by the institution because it involves the institution’s own financial administration. The complaint goes directly to SRCR, which manages the file; PRCR reviews it and recommends a course of action to the SSHRC President, who makes the final decision.
Counter-example
A researcher’s REB application is returned for revisions because the risk-mitigation plan is inadequate. This is a TCPS 2 / REB matter — ordinary prospective ethics review — and is not, on its own, a Tri-Agency Framework breach. It would only become one if the researcher proceeded with the human-participant research before obtaining the REB approval TCPS 2 requires.
Related terms
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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