IMPORTING A

RESEARCH ETHICS MODEL

INTO CREATIVE RESEARCH / LOIS KLASSEN, GLEN LOWRY & JULIE YORK

DEVELOPING A UNIVERSITY RESEARCH AGENDA requires significant changes to the structure and specialization

ofan Art and Design institution; it also involves a radical transformation to the “art school” culture and
overall mandate. When Emily Carr set out to establish a Research Ethics Board (REB) in 2006, it was
responding to a condition of eligibility for funding from the tri-council of federal research agencies—the
Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Canadian Institutes of Health
Research (CIHR), and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). More
than this, the development of an in-house REB has demonstrated how determined this eighty-seven year old
institution has been at prioritizing a top-flight “research enterprise.” [1]

In a very short time, Emily Carr has had the
enviable distinction of receiving research
funding from each of SSHRC, CIHR, and
NSERC. This has meant that the Emily Carr
REB has had to work quickly and effectively
to develop policies and approaches that

are consistent with Emily Carr’s relatively
unique multi-disciplinary, practice-driven and
creativity-focused research culture. As a result,
a key facet of the quasi-independent Emily
Carr REB office has involved educating and
supporting a new research culture. As faculty
members have come to secure tri-council
funding with increasing frequency, they often
find themselves in the position of rethinking or
revising creative practice to fit the exigencies
of scholarly endeavour. Thus, the Emily Carr
REB is tasked with building a structure for
researchers and instructors that supports
emergent as well as established participant
research projects. The following principles
have so far guided the work of the Emily

Carr REB: “At the University, the purpose of
ethics review of research involving human
participants is guided by three principles:

the protection of research participants, the
protection of the Emily Carr of Art + Design
community, and the education of those
involved in research.” [2]

Within the context of the art and design
university, these three principles have come to
take on something of a specialized meaning,
particularly around questions of creative

practice and the exact meaning or definition
of human participant research. Painting

or photographing a portrait, creating an
animation of harm reduction for drug use

and addiction, or designing an open source
website to share information from an NGO—
all necessarily involve human subjects, but

do they require REB review and approval?
There is no simple answer to this question.
The appropriate response has to do with the
designation of “research” and the type of
knowledge the project hopes to produce. While
creative practitioners have learned to adopt

the language of research and methodology to
describe their own practice, the terminology
may actually cause as much confusion as not
when it comes to the definition of human
subject research and the ethical responsibilities
involved for academics.

Published in December of 2010, the second
edition of the Tri-Council Policy Statement:
Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans
(TCPS2) emphasizes a broad approach

to research ethics that articulates unique
opportunities for practitioners and researchers
in creative disciplines. Integrating these
guidelines into Emily Carr’s research policies
and practices has produced a vital context for
the discussion and exploration of research
ethics, across disciplines and faculties at

the university. It could be argued that this
productive dialogue results in part from the
dialogic nature of the TCPS2. Distinct from