Office of Research  

Research Creates Positive Change

The Office of Research and Academic Innovation (RAI) is the focal point for developing and supporting research activity at the University College of the North (UCN).

Since 2004 when UCN became a degree-granting institution, it has been steadily building and strengthening an environment supportive of research. Today, many of our faculty members are engaged in exciting work that expands collective understanding, challenges boundaries or poses important questions, and collaboratively engages with the communities we serve to make positive change.

Whether you are a member of UCN's research community or with another institution or organization or industry, we hope you will find the information you are looking for in this webpage.

Research-at-UCN

Office of Research

UCN’s Office of Research is a part of RAI. It is here to provide assistance and get you connected! The Office of Research can help with:

  • developing a research budget
  • proposal writing and document editing
  • linking you to training and potential funding resources
  • helping you find a mentor, either within UCN or at another institution
  • helping you find a business, industry or community partner that could support your research
  • ensuring your research proposal is reviewed and receives ethics, environmental or other approvals that may be required

Research Support Fund

Research funding provided through three federal research granting agencies [Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)] is generally limited to direct project costs (e.g., research equipment, research assistant salaries, etc.). Institutions whose researchers receive funding for research also incur costs to manage their research enterprise. These are often called “indirect costs of research.”

Learn more about UCN's Research Support Fund here.

Microscope slide

Research and Scholarly Activities

Faculty and staff members at UCN are engaged in a broad range of work related to research and scholarly activity, capacity building and service.  We have many exciting projects on the go with a range of community, academic and other partners across northern Manitoba, Canada and internationally. 

2023-24 UCN Research and Scholarly Activity Report

Research Ethics Board

UCN's Research Ethics Board (REB) reviews ethics applications for research projects involving human participants. The REB is an autonomous body reporting directly to UCN's Vice-President, Academic and Research.

In reviewing ethics applications, UCN's REB follows UCN Policy and Procedures Governing Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans. This policy was developed directly from the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (known as TCPS2). TCPS2 was developed jointly by the CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC, the three main federal agencies that fund research in Canada. The three core principles of TCPS2 are Respect for Persons, Concern for Welfare, and Justice. TCPS2 contains an entire chapter, Chapter 9, on the Ethics of Research involving First Nations, Inuit and Metis Peoples of Canada.

All researchers, whether they are employed directly by UCN or external organizations but affiliated with UCN or UCN students, who intend to involve human participants in their research will have to understand and abide by UCN’s human research ethics policy.

REB Application Submission Deadlines and Meeting Schedule*
MonthREB Application Package Submission DeadlineREB Meeting Date
January1st Tuesday of the month3rd Tuesday of the month
February1st Thursday of the month3rd Thursday of the month
March1st Tuesday of the month3rd Tuesday of the month
April1st Thursday of the month3rd Thursday of the month
May1st Tuesday of the month3rd Tuesday of the month
June1st Thursday of the month3rd Thursday of the month
JulyThere are no REB meetings as faculty members are away on summer break.
AugustThere are no REB meetings as faculty members are away on summer break.
September1st Tuesday of the month3rd Tuesday of the month
October1st Thursday of the month3rd Thursday of the month
November1st Tuesday of the month3rd Tuesday of the month
December1st Thursday of the month3rd Thursday of the month

*If the application submission deadline/meeting date falls on a holiday, the next working day is the application submission deadline/meeting date.

Any questions about UCN’s REB can be directed to:

Dr. Abayomi Oredegbe
REB Chair
aoredegbe@ucn.ca

Dr. Guru Chinnasamy
REB Coordinator
gchinnasamy@ucn.ca

Animal Care Committee

UCN’s Animal Care Committee (ACC) is responsible for reviewing proposals and protocols where animals would be used in teaching, research or testing. It also reviews proposals for other types of animal use such as keeping fish tanks or terrariums in campus offices, use of animals in ceremonial or special events, etc. Establishment of the ACC is in keeping with movements nationally and globally toward ensuring humane and ethical treatment of animals in postsecondary and other institutional settings.

The ACC is an autonomous body reporting directly to UCN’s Vice-President, Academic and Research. Its activities are guided and informed by resources available through the Canadian Council on Animal Care, the primary recognized authority on institutional animal use programs and animal care committees in Canada.

UCN has a comprehensive policy governing the use of animals. UCN has adopted COSEWIC (Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada) standards as its benchmark reference relating to species at risk for policy and all other ACC matters.

NRMT Students holding a fish that they are going to tag.
UCN ACC Review Processes and Deadlines
ACC Review Process NameDeadline
Pedagogical Merit Review (PMR) and Animal Use Protocol (AUP) forms submissionApril 30
Decision on PMR and AUP formsMay 30
Revised PMR and AUP forms submissionJune 15
Decision on revised PMR and AUP formsJune 30
Post-Approval Monitoring (PAM) form submissionWithin 8 weeks of field activities over but no later than December 15
Decision on PAM formJanuary 31

Research Funding Opportunities

Internal Funding Opportunity

UCN Seed Grant Program

UCN faculty members, instructors, non-instructional staff and Elders are invited to submit applications for seed grant funding for new projects. Interdisciplinary projects between university faculties or between college programs, or between university-college researchers, projects with external partners, and/or projects that involve UCN students, Aboriginal and/or northern communities, and/or Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Canada’s Calls to Action (CTA) are highly encouraged. Proposals that have anticipated impacts and contributions to Aboriginal and/or northern communities, and other research that will be considered for funding can include but are not limited to:

  • Academic research – focused inquiry to advance knowledge in a particular discipline
  • Scholarly research – research into teaching and learning in a particular discipline
  • Applied research – investigation of a practical problem or process, or that improves or develops a product
  • Social innovation research – research directed toward the development of new ideas or the use of existing ideas to find solutions to social challenges
  • Action research – an interactive method of collecting information used to explore topics of teaching, curriculum development and student behavior in the classroom

For the details on Seed Grant Competition 2025/2026, refer the documents listed below. The application submission deadline is March 3, 2025.

For more information, contact

Dr. Guru Chinnasamy
Chair of Seed Grant Committee
Manager of Research
Office of Research, UCN
Email: gchinnasamy@ucn.ca

 

External Funding Opportunities

 

Internal Deadlines for External Research Grant Applications

UCN Research Office follows grant submission process and internal deadlines for all external research grant competitions as listed below.

  • UCN Research Office recommends faculty members/researchers to start writing the research proposal minimum 6 months before the external funding agency deadline.
  • If the UCN faculty member/researcher needs the support letter from UCN Vice President Academic and Research (VPAR) for the external research grant application, he/she has to request the VPAR support letter through UCN Research Office 2 months before the external funding agency deadline.
  • The UCN faculty member/researcher has to submit, in coordination with UCN Research Office, the final grant application package to the external funding agency 1 week before the external funding agency deadline.

Research Data Management Plan/Strategy

The research data management (RDM) plan is becoming a requirement of Canadian Tri-Agencies (SSHRC, NSERC and CIHR) research grant funding, and funding from many other sources. These funding agencies strongly support research data sharing, data management and open access. These agencies have set polices which will require grant funded researchers to organize and manage data produced for funded research, so that it can be shared with other researchers.

In November 2021, an RDM Advisory Committee (RDMAC) was formed by UCN to develop the RDM plan for UCN. The RDMAC developed the UCN’s draft RDM plan which was reviewed and approved by the Research, Education and Learning (REAL) Committee. The UCN’s Learning Council was informed about the RDM plan of UCN.

UCN’s Current RDM Plan

 

Strategic Research Plan

The variety and significance of the research work at UCN is impressive, and UCN’s research potential is equally as impressive. Establishing a Strategic Research Plan allows UCN to collectively and collegially envision how it will engage in research, and help to set an agenda for supporting research activity within the institution.

UCN’s Strategic Research Plan 2022/23 – 2024/25

 

Research Policies

UCN expects all research undertaken by faculty, non-teaching staff and students adhere to the highest possible standards of integrity and conduct.

The following policies that have been approved by UCN's Learning Council. All researchers, whether they are employed directly by UCN or external organizations, or UCN students, who are conducting research in affiliation with UCN, are expected to abide by these key documents:

  • AC-04-02 Integrity in Research and Scholarly Activity
  • AC-04-03 Conflict of Interest and Commitment in Research and Scholarly Activity

In addition to the two key foundational policies above, UCN has following two policies governing the ethics of involving humans in research as well as the use of animals in teaching, research and testing.

  • UCN Policy and Procedures Governing Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans
  • AN-01-01 Use of Animals in Teaching, Research and Testing

 

Research Partnerships and Collaborations

To enhance Canada’s research security and protection and comply with Government of Canada’s regulations, UCN expects all partnership and collaborative research undertaken by UCN faculty, researchers, staff and students follows Government of Canada’s New Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern 2024 

Government of Canada's New Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern 2024 (PDF version)

Intellectual Property

The details of UCN's Intellectual Property policy and practice are currently under development. Inquiries may be directed to

Harvey Briggs
Director, Research and Academic Innovation
hbriggs@ucn.ca

 

ResearchRabbit

ResearchRabbit is an artificial intelligence (AI)-based comprehensive research tool. It helps users with the literature search in specific subject or across all subjects. It allows to save documents by clicking “add to collection.” After collecting research papers/academic literatures, it shows related documents. This feature helps to see how papers are related, including information about authors and publication dates. ResearchRabbit is free for all users and can be used anywhere. It is available at https://www.researchrabbit.ai/.

 

Signing Authority

Research-related agreements can take a variety of forms and have various names, depending on their purpose. Some examples are Research Agreement, Research Contract, Non-Disclosure Agreement, Confidentiality Agreement, Material Transfer Agreement, Technical Services Agreement or Intellectual Property Agreement.

Where the UCN name, staff time, space, equipment or facilities are being committed for a research project, individual faculty members or non-teaching staff employed by or on contract with UCN do not have authority to sign such research-related agreements or contracts on behalf of UCN. Such documents require the signature of UCN's Vice-President, Academic and Research.

For further information, contact

Dr. Lynette Plett
Vice-President, Academic and Research
lplett@ucn.ca

 

Resources

The Researcher Guide is intended to help researchers at all stages of their research and scholarly activity by providing essential information that they must take into account, as well as ‘good to know’ information that may be useful.

In addition, you can access "How to Brew the Perfect Research Project". This booklet offers step-by-step guidance in developing and working through a research project.

 

Contact

Harvey Briggs
Director, Research and Academic Innovation
Office of Research and Academic Innovation (RAI)
University College of the North
hbriggs@ucn.ca

Dr. Guru Chinnasamy
Manager of Research
Office of Research
University College of the North
gchinnasamy@ucn.ca

Ishwer Dherdi
Research Facilitator
Office of Research
University College of the North
idherdi@ucn.ca

Amanpreet Kaur
Administrative Assistant
Office of Research and RAI
University College of the North
akaur@ucn.ca