New executive director for research ethics agency

Ottawa, ON – Susan Zimmerman has been appointed as executive director of the Interagency Secretariat on Research Ethics, Tri-Council Initiative (CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC), effective September 4.

A lawyer, Ms Zimmerman holds a master of laws from the University of Toronto.

Her professional experience includes positions as a senior research associate at the centre for medicine, ethics and law at McGill University, director of legislation and law reform at the Canadian Bar Association, legal counsel at Health Canada and director of research for the Law Commission of Canada. Most recently, she was a member of the Health Law Group at the Toronto office of a national law firm, where she represented health care institutions and a variety of health care professionals.

Created in November 2001 by the three federal granting agencies, the Interagency Advisory Panel and Secretariat on Research Ethics act as the governance structure for the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS). The mandate of the Panel and Secretariat is to promote high ethical standards in Canadian research involving humans to ensure the protection of human participants, thereby enhancing public trust in Canadian research.