This guide was designed to help new members of the Brock University community integrate and thrive as scholars and researchers. It provides an overview of the research structure, supports, and commonly used abbreviations and acronyms at Brock.
A note of acknowledgement: this guide was initially created in consultation with Brock University’s Black researcher community, to promote Black Flourishing and specifically to enhance researcher onboarding supports. Its broad usefulness illustrates how practices and measures that promote equity, diversity and inclusion tend to benefit everyone.
Guide to navigating research at Brock University
Version 3.1, August 2026
Welcome to Brock University! We are thrilled to have you as a colleague and researcher at Brock.
Starting at a new institution means learning about new people, processes, resources, and requirements. This guide was developed to strengthen the onboarding of researchers new to the University, making the transition to Brock easier.
Brock’s Research Enterprise brings together the expertise, guidance, resources, and infrastructure that support research across the University. The guide provides information on where to go for assistance with research funding, financial administration, ethics, animal care services, research impact, commercialization, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization (EDID), and other aspects of the research lifecycle.
We hope it will help you identify the people and resources you need as you continue to grow as a researcher.
Welcome to the Brock research community!
Your Research Enterprise Colleagues
The Research Enterprise refers to the collective infrastructure that supports researchers at Brock University. The Enterprise recognizes the full research lifecycle, including planning, grants, awards, facilities and infrastructure, regulatory requirements, research security, knowledge transfer, and commercialization.
- Office of the Vice-President Research (OVPR)
- Office of Research Services (ORS)
- Research Funding Support
- Research Accounting
- Research Impact
- Legal Counsel
- Office of Research Ethics (ORE)
- Animal Research
- Animal Care Committee
- Animal Care Services
- Brock LINC (Research Commercialization, Partnerships, and Entrepreneurship)
- Office of Research Services (ORS)
The Office of the Vice-President, Research, oversees and facilitates research operations, facilitation, governance, and strategic planning for Brock University. The Research Enterprise facilitates a wide range of research, scholarship, and creative activities, each requiring its own forms of support, and each with connections to teaching and learning, to research impact, and to engagement with non-academic partners. The University overall as a research institution and specific types of research activity are subject to various compliance requirements set by external agencies, legal frameworks, and professional bodies. The administrative units reporting into the Office of the Vice-President, Research, collectively support this wide range of scholarly activities and partnerships, assisting researchers in finding resources and in conducting inquiry with due care and attention to relevant requirements and guidelines.
Office of the Vice-President, Research (OVPR)
The OVPR currently comprises the Vice-President, Research and the Associate Vice-President, Research, as well as key staff support in financial management; strategic initiatives; equity, diversity, and inclusion; honours, prizes, awards, and distinctions; and office management. Reporting into the Office are four main research facilitation units:
- Office of Research Services, responsible for grant facilitation, research grant accounting, and research legal counsel;
- Office of Research Ethics, facilitating the work of Brock University’s Research Ethics Boards under the auspices of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2);
- Animal Care Services, supporting the ethical and scientifically sound care and use of animals in research at Brock University, and liaising with the Animal Care Committee; and
- Brock LINC, leading and coordinating Brock University’s innovation, commercialization, industrial research partnerships, entrepreneurship, and applied research ecosystems.
Complementing these units are research administrators and service providers across Faculties, Centres, Institutes, and other areas of the University, including the Library, Facilities Management, Health, Safety and Wellness, Human Rights and Equity, Development and Donor Relations, and Government Relations.
Together with the OVPR, these colleagues support research, scholarships, and creative activity across Brock by providing infrastructure, training, policy guidance, and connections with community, government, and industry partners. Their work helps researchers carry out their work effectively and increases their reach and impact.
Strategic Research and Integrity
- Implement Brock University’s strategic research agenda and key research related action plans, guidelines, policies, and reports.
- Ensure the responsible conduct of research and respond to misconduct, where applicable.
Research Infrastructure and Compliance
- Implement the Research Enterprise Plan, offering expertise, guidance, and resources for the development and promotion of research, and of the impact it has for communities, partners, and a vibrant, engaged citizenry.
- Facilitate compliance with biosafety (Containment Levels CL1, CL2, CL3), chemical safety, and radiation safety regulations and procedures, including training and risk assessments.
- Assist researchers in finding and using Advanced Research Computing (ARC) resources, particularly those offered by the Digital Research Alliance of Canada.
EDID
- Increase awareness of systemic barriers.
- Provide thorough technical reviews and workshops for researchers on EDID requirements of specific programs to support strong applications.
- Liaise with granting agencies and interpret EDI/ EDID policies and requirements, representing the University to funding agencies.
Research Impact and Research Excellence
- Provide expertise to help researchers realize the outputs, outcomes, and impacts of their scholarly work, supporting them in mobilizing knowledge into action.
- Showcase research excellence by supporting faculty nominations for HPAD through a lens of EDID.
To read more about governance frameworks guiding research at Brock, including action plans, guidelines, policies, and reports, please visit the following links:
- Internal:
- External:
- Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities: Guide to the Act
- Canadian Biosafety Standards and Guidelines
- Digital Research Alliance of Canada Wiki site
- Ontario Human Rights Code
- Public Health Agency of Canada Training Portal
- Scarborough Charter
- Tri-Agency Framework: Responsible Conduct of Research (2021)
- Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action
- Information on transdisciplinary, collaborative, or community-engaged research, can be accessed on the Research Institutes & Centres webpage
- Researchers seeking to understand more about EDID in research can visit the EDID in Research webpage.
Researchers seeking support can contact the following resources:
- ARC support: [email protected] and/or [email protected]
- CL3 facility support: [email protected]
- EDID in research advising: [email protected]
- Research Impact: [email protected]
- General Inquiries: [email protected]
- Honours, prizes, awards, and distinctions support: [email protected]
- Lab safety support: [email protected]
- General Inquiries: [email protected]
To keep up with research-related opportunities and news, sign up to receive Brock Research Enterprise Alerts (BREA), our bi-weekly e-bulletin. To sign up, please e-mail [email protected]
Office of Research Services (ORS)
ORS supports faculty and staff researchers in advancing their research, scholarship, and creative activities. Its main responsibilities include advising researchers, working with a wide range of funders, and providing expertise in research funding, contract management and other legal matters, and financial accountability.
Research Funding Support is comprised of Research Officers (ROs) who help researchers secure funding to carry out their research and creative activity.
Areas of support
- Advise researchers on appropriate funding opportunities for their proposed research.
- Liaise with granting agencies and interpret policies for Brock partners, representing the University to funding agencies, community, industry, and other research organizations.
- Steward funding applications through the University and funding agency submission and approval processes, ensuring compliance with all relevant policies, guidelines, eligibility criteria, and budget requirements.
- Conduct technical reviews (upon researcher request, when related ORS deadlines are met) as well as mandatory compliance/administrative reviews of applications prior to submission to funding agencies.
- Draft, review, and advise on the development of research contracts.
- Provide workshops for faculty, staff, and students as well as program guides, webinar slides, and other resources for relevant funding opportunities/agencies (as available).
Considerations for new researchers
- Brock researchers looking for research funding, requiring assistance with research funding application forms, or with any research funding questions may log into the internal Research Enterprise SharePoint site.
- Brock offers a variety of internal awards. Information on internal grants administered by ORS may be found at the Internal Funding webpage.
- Questions about research support provided at the faculty level are best directed to Faculty Deans and Associate Deans, Research (ADRs).
Contact information
- Contact Research Funding Support at [email protected] for assistance.
Research Accounting is responsible for the financial administration of all awarded research funding, including externally sponsored funds and internal university research grants.
Areas of support
- Ensure that all research funding is spent in compliance with applicable international, federal, provincial, and institutional regulations.
- Evaluate research spending against the compliance and eligibility criteria of the relevant funding agency and Brock University’s spending and purchasing policies, as well as ensuring that there are sufficient funds available.
- Provide general financial administration of research funding (e.g., setting up accounts, transferring funds, completing financial reports for funding agencies, etc.).
Considerations for new researchers
To read more about key policies and procedures, please visit the following links:
- Brock University Indirect Costs of Research Policy
- Brock University Travel, Meal and Hospitality Expense Policy
- Brock University’s Institutional Financial Conflicts of Interest (FCOI) Procedure
Contact information
- Contact the Research Accounting team at [email protected].
Office of Research Ethics (ORE)
Brock University is committed to the responsible and ethical conduct of research. The fundamental imperative of research involving human participants is encapsulated in three core principles: respect for persons, concern for welfare, and justice. To this end, Brock University endorses and adheres to the principles set out in the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS2, 2022) and the 2026 Supplementary Guidance.
- Brock University has two research ethics boards (REBs):
- The Health Science Research Ethics Board (HREB) reviews all applications from the Faculty of Applied Health Sciences
- The Social Science Research Ethics Board (SREB) reviews applications from all other academic units.
- A sub-committee specific to Indigenous research advises both boards on matters of cultural protocols, history, and tradition.
- All human participant research, whether funded or non-funded, conducted under the auspices and/or jurisdiction of Brock must undergo review and receive ethics clearance from one of Brock’s REBs prior to the start of the project. This applies regardless of the Brock members’ contribution or the location of the research site and includes research conducted by faculty, staff, or students and course-based research undertaken by students for pedagogical purposes and/or course credit.
The ORE is responsible for the ethical oversight of research involving human participants at Brock. The ORE provides centralized administrative and educational functions related to research ethics review. Contact the ORE for information on REB applications, research ethics reviews, and turn-around-times at [email protected].
- Turn-around time (from submission to first decision) for minimal risk projects is approximately 15–20 working days. Projects posing greater than minimal risk are reviewed at pre-scheduled, monthly meetings.
Contact the Office of Research Ethics at [email protected] to be added to the mailing list for The Research Ethics Beacon, which shares ongoing research ethics tips and training opportunities throughout the year.
Animal Care Services
Brock University has a moral commitment to provide appropriate care of, and respect for, animals involved in animal-based research or teaching. The Animal Care Committee (ACC) is mandated to safeguard the welfare of animals involved in research and teaching and reports to the Vice-President, Research. In conjunction with Animal Care Services (ACS), the ACC ensures that all animal research conducted at Brock University follows the mandatory guidelines set by the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC), a national body responsible for setting, maintaining, and overseeing animal ethics and care in science throughout Canada, as well as the regulations of the Ontario Animals for Research Act.
- Oversight of the Brock University Animal Care and Use Program is through the ACC. The ACC oversees all teaching and research activities involving animals, develops standard operating procedures and guidelines in compliance with the CCAC, and reviews all animal protocol applications, amendments and renewals following the Brock ACC Terms of Reference. The ACC reports to the Vice-President, Research, The Vice-President, Research may direct the Associate Vice-President, Research to act as official designate.
- All research or teaching involving vertebrates and higher form invertebrates (e.g., cephalopods) by faculty, graduate or undergraduate students, instructors, research associates, or any other personnel regardless of the source of funding must be covered under an approved protocol from the ACC before research can begin.
- Brock University requires that all researchers or instructors who are working with animals shall first receive the proper training, guidance, and resources and recognizes that any use of animals in teaching or research is a privilege, not a right. ACS works closely with the ACC to provide services in support of the Brock University Animal Care and Use program. Prior training in Animal Care and Use is a requirement for anyone intending to work with live vertebrates or higher form invertebrates for teaching or research purposes. Completion of the appropriate modules on Brock’s Animal Care Training program will meet the requirements mandated by the CCAC.
- Turn-around time (from submission to first review) is approximately 20-25 working days. Projects are reviewed at pre-scheduled, monthly meetings.
- New researchers to Brock can contact [email protected] for any protocol related questions or to get access to the application forms.
- For any animal-based research involving another institution please review SOP ACC10 — Animal-Based projects involving two or more institutions, and contact [email protected] for any related questions
- For any animal facility related questions regarding the Comparative BioScience facility or Aquaterrium please contact [email protected]
- Key Features of the Comparative BioScience Facility
- Key Features of the Aquaterrium
- Once you settle into your new role at Brock, consider volunteering for the ACC. In addition to animal-based researchers, we also require at least one faculty researcher who does not engage in animal-based research.
For research application or ACC questions please contact [email protected].
For facility related questions please contact [email protected].
Brock LINC (Research Commercialization, Partnerships & Entrepreneurship)
The Brock LINC provides innovation supports for the Brock and Niagara community. For Brock researchers, this includes supports for research commercialization, research–industry partnerships, and entrepreneurship.
- Research Commercialization: Help researchers commercialize and license their work while protecting their intellectual property (IP). The team supports IP evaluation, IP protection, licensing technology, and more.
- Research–Industry Partnerships: Match interested researchers and industry partners; identify funding opportunities to support research–industry partnerships.
- Entrepreneurship: Grow entrepreneurship through the development of research spin-offs and student entrepreneurship. The Brock LINC houses the University’s business incubator and provides entrepreneurship programs, workshops, events, and one-on-one support.
- Innovation Facility: Manage the spaces in the University’s innovation facility, the Rankin Family Pavilion.
- To learn more about commercialization, partnerships, or entrepreneurship, please visit the following links:
- The Brock LINC holds regular workshops, events, and programs on IP education, commercialization, and entrepreneurship. Visit the Brock LINC Events webpage for upcoming events.
Researchers with questions about research commercialization, research–industry partnerships, or entrepreneurship support can email the Brock LINC team at [email protected].
To stay up to date on the latest news and opportunities from the Brock LINC, sign up for our monthly e-newsletter on the Brock LINC News webpage.