The principles guiding the Queen’s Safeguarding Research Institutional Strategy are:
Research excellence
Queen’s is committed to excellence in research, which drives innovation and discovery and strengthens the University’s local, provincial, national, and international impact.
Queen’s acknowledges potential risks to the security of research, innovation and reputation faced by the research community, in many cases related to research partnerships, and takes appropriate responsibility to mitigate them.
Institutional support for researchers
Queen’s understands the potential security risks related to research and innovation and is taking the necessary steps and precautions to ensure research security (see Safeguarding Research , Government of Canada 2021).
Queen’s supports due diligence through the administration of research tools, technologies and support services that actively assess and mitigate risks to research and intellectual property.
Strong collaborations
According to the Government of Canada (2021), “...collaborative research environments are essential to propel creativity and advance research discoveries” Why safeguard your research? .
Queen’s recognizes the need to ensure authentic intentions in research partnerships, but also to formulate mitigation measures to secure research investments.
Open dissemination of research results
The Tri-Agencies (2016) state their interest in “promoting the availability of findings that result from the research they fund, including research publications and data, to the widest possible audience, and at the earliest possible opportunity” Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications .
Queen’s encourages a consideration of the security implications of sharing research results, particularly with personal health and other confidential data, while promoting a research environment that is as open as possible and as closed as necessary.
Maintaining compliance and security
Queen’s recognizes the importance of the integrity of Canada’s research enterprise, particularly when considering compliance and security obligations and provisions. According to the Government of Canada (2021), “research should always be practiced with integrity and transparency, in full respect of privacy, security, ethical considerations, and with appropriate intellectual property protections” Government of Canada Releases National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships .
As such, Queen’s complies with relevant legal and commercial obligations and supports researchers with legal advice on research security considerations with legal and other implications.