Below you will find all GREB applications available in fillable PDF format. These forms serve as tools to familiarize yourself with questions and requirements before submitting your project.
GREB Application Forms
Complete this form if you wish to start a new prospective research study involving human participants.
Use this form if the research study looks at the relationship between people and their surroundings, including how people interact with each other, their communities, and institutional systems. They include psychological phenomena such as emotions, biases, and motivations. Psychological therapy and counselling studies fall under behavioural research. Emergent design and community-based studies are considered social science and behavioural research unless a clinical intervention is involved. Common methods include, but are not limited to, interviews, focus groups, surveys, questionnaires, behavioural therapy workshops, experimental coaching, and observations.
Complete this form if ethics approval has already been obtained from another Canadian institution (adhering to the Tri-Agency Funding requirements).
Note: this form can only be used if the local researcher is responsible only for receiving funding and/or data and/or samples for analysis (i.e., without local active recruitment or participant interaction).
Please note that determining which institutional REB is the one that you must seek approval from first (it is not necessarily your home institution first) may need to be discussed. Before you begin preparing the multi-jurisdictional REB application, it is recommended that you reach out to the Research Ethics Office at researchethics@queensu.ca.
Complete this form if you are conducting research involving secondary use of data (i.e., data that have been initially collected for a different purpose) and that does not involve recruitment of participants or interventions.
Review by a research ethics board is required for all research that relies exclusively on secondary use of information unless the information is publicly available.
Note: to use this data, you will have to demonstrate that consent (i.e., broad consent) was obtained by the participants in the initial data collection study or describe how your proposed use of the data satisfies the TCPS 2 Article 5.5A and/or 5.5B.
Complete this form if you are conducting a study that solely involves Chart Review(s).
If your study involves any other methodologies alongside the chart reviews, you must use the appropriate alternative application form.
A chart review is an evaluation or analysis of an individual’s record. As the information contained in the records was originally collected for another purpose (e.g., court proceedings or probation orders), when used for research purposes, chart reviews are considered “secondary use of identifiable information for research purposes.”
Complete this form for case report study/series.
Case reports are unique accounts of individual cases noted during regular practice. These reports are not initiated as inquiry/investigation, nor are these cases meant to be generalizable.
If your case report study/series has a research objective, you will need to obtain approval by GREB before beginning your case report study/series.
If your case report study/series is a teaching series, you can obtain an exemption by GREB.
Complete this form if your research is a Quality Assurance (QA), Quality Improvement (QI) or Program Evaluation (PE) study. QA/QI/PE studies are projects undertaken to assess the performance of a program, organization, group, faculty, or department.
QA/QI/PE projects are conducted internally and for operational and/or administrative purposes per TCPS 2 Article 2.5.
QA/QI/PE projects will be granted a formal exemption by the REB.
Complete this form if you are an instructor and you wish to oversee the conduct of course-based student research assignments.
Review of course-based research is required due to participants encountering similar risks and experiences in these course assignments as they would in research studies, even if the assignments are primarily learning experiences for students.
This includes, for example, asking students to conduct interviews to collect data to be used in a course assignment, or to practice interviewing techniques. Participants in the activities may be exposed to risks (normally minimal risk) as a result of their participation and may not distinguish these activities from others that meet the definition of research in TCPS 2.
Complete this form for research where self-study is the only type of research being conducted.
Self-study research is an approach to understand one’s own practice and one’s self-concept, meaning that individuals look critically at their own professional values, work towards a better self-understanding, and have a moral purpose.
GREB Event Forms
Complete this form to submit adverse events which satisfy the requirements of submission criteria.
The Researcher is responsible for reporting to the REB any information about the conduct of the research that could affect the rights, safety, and well-being of research participants, including information about any serious or continuing noncompliance.
Complete this form to make any changes to the initial REB-approved research. Researchers may only implement changes to their study once the amendment has been reviewed and approved by the REB.
Complete this form to request changes (additions or removals) to the study team members who have or require TRAQ access.
Note: You do not need to submit this form for a study team member change involving personnel who do not require access in TRAQ.
If study team members require access to the files/correspondence in TRAQ, they must be listed as a study team member within the study files.
Complete this form to submit a protocol deviation (PD) report. PDs are changes to the study that have not undergone ethics review and received approval. These are normally unanticipated or unintentional changes.
Complete this form to submit a privacy breach report. Privacy breaches occur when there is unauthorized access to, or collection, use, or disclosure of, personal information.
Complete this form to submit a study renewal.
Renewals are required for research that will continue beyond the stated approval expiry date. Renewal dates are usually on the anniversary date of the initial REB approval, but not always, so please check the expiry date on the approval letter. It is the responsibility of the researcher to submit the renewal according to Queen’s SOPs.
Complete this form to submit a study closure. Study closures should be submitted when:
- There is no further participant involvement at the site
- There will be no new data collected from the study participants
- Databases are “locked” and queries have been resolved
- Sponsor closeout activities have been completed (if applicable)