Governance and COI management

The COVID-19 Immunity Task Force (CITF) was launched in response to a global health emergency. The work of the Task Force was conducted at a rapid pace and was built around partnerships with provinces, territories, communities, agencies, institutions, and research experts from coast to coast.

The Task Force was engaged in research that had to be rigorous and that entailed meeting both high ethical standards and modern expectations of engagement with stakeholders. At the same time, the Task Force was mandated to expedite Canada’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore rapid publication of results and wide sharing of data was essential.

The CITF’s management of conflict of interest

The CITF developed rigorous and transparent processes at all levels of operation, from the identification of priority research topics to the implementation of proposal evaluation and decision-making procedures for applications submitted for funding. The CITF was especially attentive to issues related to Conflict of Interest (COI), particularly regarding the assessment of applications for funding, a process which was carefully managed by the Executive Committee (EC).

Prior to January 1, 2023, when deciding on whether to award funding to a researcher and a project, COI was managed in the following distinct ways:

• Executive Committee: All award investment decisions were made at the EC level. To hold a seat on the EC, it was therefore a requirement, to preserve neutrality, that EC members could not have previously applied for or held CITF funds and could not intend to apply for or hold CITF funds.
• COI declarations: All non-ex officio members of the EC, Leadership Group (LG), and Working Parties (WPs), as well as all executive members of the Secretariat, had to complete a COI declaration form on an annual basis, found on the CITF website.
• External reviewers: At the level of proposal review, all candidate external reviewers for studies submitted to the CITF for funding were asked to declare any COI. The CITF adopted COI definitions for the review process drawn from Federal Research Funding Organizations Alternative reviewers were selected when a COI was identified. Reviewers used a standard form that included pre-determined evaluation criteria to guide the assessment of proposals and ensure transparency.
• Committee meetings/recusals and abstentions: In all formal CITF committee meetings, the meeting chair invited individual members to disclose COIs (direct or indirect) at the start of the session and again before each proposed study was discussed or evaluated. The COIs disclosed were recorded by the CITF Secretariat in formal minutes. Declarations were assessed and addressed by the meeting chair. As meetings occurred virtually, participants with direct conflicts were recused to an electronic waiting room or abstained from participation until the project’s evaluation, discussion, and award recommendations concluded. Participants with indirect COIs could be instructed to abstain from participation at the discretion of the Chair. In some cases, members could choose to formally abstain or recuse themselves. Direct COIs raised for each funding decision made by the EC are published below.

As of January 1, 2023 under the joint governance structure, the procedure to evaluate and issue decisions on funding continued to follow similar guidelines.

Confidentiality

Members of CITF advisory and decision-making bodies and the CITF Secretariat may have had access to novel processes or ideas as well as confidential information about applicants and their proposals for contracts or grants. Members were accordingly expected to treat deliberations and decisions as confidential until announced publicly. In particular, there was to be no advance notice given regarding funding competitions, early reports of funding decisions, or disclosure of strategic deliberations by the EC, CITF advisory bodies, and Secretariat.

Conflict of interest management in the Canadian COVID research reality

The Task Force Executive Committee (EC), Leadership Group (LG), and Working Parties (WP or WPs) included not only representatives from federal sponsors and provincial partners, but a range of researchers from across Canada who had distinguished themselves in relevant fields of inquiry. The inevitable result was that many LG and WP members were themselves involved with key research teams that were potential candidates for financial support from the CITF. The Task Force co-Chairs and federal sponsors were aware of this structural anomaly. They were fully committed to processes that managed the potential COI it created. At the same time, this unusual situation meant that all those involved with the work of the Task Force had to conduct themselves with careful attention to perceived and actual conflicts of interest.

Conflict of interest is defined as a tension between duties and responsibilities, and private, professional, business, or public interests. There may be a real, perceived, or potential conflict of interest when someone:

• Receives professional or personal benefit resulting from the funding opportunity or application being reviewed;
• Has a professional or personal relationship with an applicant or the applicant’s institution; or
• Has a direct or indirect financial interest in a funding opportunity or application being reviewed.