Department of Medicine

 

LABORATORY SAFETY

In order to address the health, safety, and environmental challenges specific to the laboratories, programs, safety and procedure manuals and laboratory specific training courses have now been developed by UCalgary Environment, Health & Safety (EHS)

The EHS Laboratory Safety Program can be found at: https://live-risk.ucalgary.ca/risk/environment-health-safety/programs-standards/programs/laboratory-safety

EHS TRAINING MODULES

A list of training modules can be found on the EHS website at: https://live-risk.ucalgary.ca/risk/environment-health-safety/training

All training requires login through UCalgary’s Central Authentication Service (i.e. you will need your UCalgary IT account credentials to login), but various tabs that will get you there are hyperlinked below.

• All university employees (including faculty, management and staff) need to complete the University’s Occupational Health & Safety Orientation within the first week of employment. You will also need to complete the Hazard Assessment Training
• All managers and supervisors are required to complete the Incident Reporting and Investigation Training.
• All people who work in/supervise a laboratory environment need to complete the following training (all listed on the Laboratory Health and Safety Orientation and Training Record):
  • WHMIS 2015
  • Laboratory Safety Training
  • Spill Response Training
• If the lab deals with biohazards (most department members with labs will fall into this category), you will also require Biosafety (Program) Training and Biosafety (Annual Refresher) Training.
  • If applicable, the completion certificate for this module is required by the University’s Research and Trust Accounting department to set up new project accounts – you will not get your money if you don’t do this!
• If you will be working directly in a lab with biohazard designation (i.e. not just supervising staff and students), you will also need to complete Biosafety (Biohazard Handling) Training, as well as Biosafety (Bloodborne Pathogens) Training if working with bloodborne pathogens.

Any other courses offered should be listed through the “Course Listing – Mandatory Training” tab on the University’s Environmental Health and Safety webpage.

Department members conducting research involving humans, animals or bio-hazards must obtain required certifications and approvals. Links to relevant University of Calgary web-pages are provided. If you are planning to conduct research involving either humans or animals, be sure to first register yourself in the IRISS system.

• For research involving humans, you will need to:
  • Complete the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS) 2 Course on Research Ethics (Core) Tutorial prior to gaining ethics approval. The tutorial takes 3 hours to complete (can be self-paced) and a certificate is issued following successful completion of a multiple-choice quiz.
  • Submit an ethics application for review by either the Conjoint Health Research Ethics Board or the Health Research Ethics Board of Alberta Cancer Committee through the online IRISS system.
• For research involving animals, you will need to:
  • Submit an Animal Use Protocol for review by the Animal Care Committee (request access to the Animal Health Unit website here) through the online IRISS system.
  • Ensure all individuals working with animals have completed required components of the Institutional Animal User Training Program.

Research programs require funding, which can come from many different sources, from small, internal seed grants to large, multi-national team grants. There are several offices within the University of Calgary and the Cumming School of Medicine that exist to support your research activities, both pre-award (i.e. during the process of applying for funding) and post-award (i.e. managing funds from successful applications).

RESEARCH MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (RMS)

• The Research Management System (RMS) is a new platform that manages the pre-award, post-award, and publication phases of a research grant or contract. Throughout the Grants and Contracts life-cycle, RMS interfaces with other UCalgary systems, such as IRISS and PeopleSoft, to provide a seamless process for grants and awards management, eliminate re-keying of data and heightened transparency into the status of applications at any time.
• RMS Website: https://research.ucalgary.ca/rms
• UCalgary RMS Information Package

PRE-AWARD

• New Faculty – please read! The University of Calgary’s Research Services Office has prepared a handbook that will help you navigate the research funding landscape. More guides, checklists, resources, and links can be found on the UCalgary Research webpage.
• For pre-award support, the University advertises many current and up-coming funding opportunities. We will periodically post awards of particular relevance to department members on the Department’s calendar as well.

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

• Internal opportunities (administered through the University of Calgary):
  • Faculty Conference Travel Grants
  • Conference and Workshop Grants
  • Thesis and Dissertation Research Grants
  • Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning Grants
  • University Research Grants Committees (URGC) Seed Grant Programs
    • University of Calgary Faculty Seed Grants (Sciences, Engineering and Medicine)
    • University of Calgary SSHRC Explore Faculty Seed Grants
    • University of Calgary SSHRC Exchange Partnership Seed Grants
  • Margaret Gunn Endowment for Animal Research
  • Clinical Research Fund (in partnership with Alberta Health Services)
  • Global Health and International Partnership Funding (includes undergraduate, graduate, and faculty travel awards for research, education, elective training, and knowledge dissemination)
• External opportunities are numerous and highly variable, based on topic, source, amount and length. The University of Calgary does a very good job listing current and up-coming funding opportunities through its Funding Deadline Calendar for researchers and a more tailored version for Fellows and Postdocs. Faculty members are also encouraged to sign up for a COS Pivot account, an external, searchable database of research funding opportunities that requires a University of Calgary ID.
• There are a number of additional University of Calgary Research Services resources that can help you during the pre-award phase, many of which can be accessed at http://www.ucalgary.ca/research/researchers/forms-and-resources.

POST-AWARD

• Internal opportunities (administered through the University of Calgary):
  • For post-award support through the University of Calgary, in addition to Ethics and Compliance, you will need to work with Research Accounting to set up and manage the funds from your award.
  • You may also find that your research requires some sort of Research Contract or Agreement – if you think this might be the case, but aren’t sure exactly what you might need, review the “Contract and agreement types” tab. Examples include: Confidential Disclosure Agreements, Consulting Agreements, Clinical Trial Agreements, Data Sharing Agreements, Material Transfer Agreements, Research/Service Agreements (e.g. with Alberta Health Services or private industry partners). Please note that the Cumming School of Medicine has its own legal team that is separate from the rest of the University of Calgary
    • CSM Legal, Research Services: https://cumming.ucalgary.ca/research-institutes/csm-research-services/legal-research-services
    • Main Campus Legal, Research Services: https://www.ucalgary.ca/legalservices/