The Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Institutional Review Board (McGill IRB) is mandated to review research that involves human subjects conducted by the University's faculty, students, and/or administrative and support staff. All research involving human participants conducted at or under the auspices of McGill University must be reviewed and approved by the appropriate McGill authorized Research Ethics Board (REB).
Research Involving McGill-Affiliated Hospital Sites
The McGill affiliated hospital sites are the Douglas Mental Health University Institute (CIUSSS ODIM), the Jewish General Hospital (CIUSSS West-Central Montreal), the St. Mary's Hospital Centre (CIUSSS ODIM) and the MUHC .
The University has signed inter-institutional agreements with these affiliated hospital REBs.
If your study involves one or more of the McGill affiliated hospital site(s), please contact the appropriate hospital REB for submission information.
Authorization letters: If your study is reviewed and approved by one of the McGill affiliated hospital REBs and also involves University resources (including facilities, equipment, services, staff, or student recruitment), an additional feasibility review needs to be conducted by McGill University. To request a McGill feasibility and authorization letter, please submit the hospital REB approval letter, approved protocol and supporting documents to submit2irb.med [at] mcgill.ca. An authorization letter will be issued after review of the documents.
The McGill IRB is the designated Research Ethics Board for the Shriner's Hospitals for Children, Montreal.
Multi-Centre Research
Guidelines for multi-centre ethics review were implemented by the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux (MSSS) on February 1, 2015. Any research project that is conducted at more than one public institution in the network (Réseau de la Santé et des Services sociaux - RSSS) must be reviewed by a research ethics board in the RSSS. Please see MSSS Framework for Multi-Centre Review for procedures.
Since the University is not a partner to the MSSS multi-centre review process, an additional University ethics review will be required for research that involves human subjects conducted by McGill faculty, students, residents, postdocs and staff that was reviewed by an MSSS REB other than the McGill affiliated hospital REBs (see above). Researchers are advised to contact the McGill IRB office to verify whether an additional ethics review is required.