The Research Approvals Processes Project (RAPP) is a provincially-led initiative that supports research within the health system in British Columbia. Health Research BC shares these updates on behalf of the RAPP team.
Since RAPP’s inception, there has been significant change within the Ministry of Health, across the province, and more broadly to the global economic and political landscape. In this evolving context, RAPP maintains a key role in advancing the provincial objective of streamlining research processes and enhancing health research in British Columbia.
The Look West Strategy released last year expands on BC’s Life Sciences and Biomanufacturing Strategy by focusing on enhancing the province’s life sciences and biomanufacturing capabilities and economic potential. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration between government, industry and academics to advance the research sector. RAPP directly supports these objectives through its work to streamline the research approvals processes, thus increasing the timeliness of research and reducing barriers to a flourishing research community.
In March, the RAPP team conducted a series of 1:1 engagement with the ethics SMEs at each regional health authority as well as UBC (as they are the service providers for Vancouver Coastal and Providence Health). The objective was to share the proposed centralised research ethics review model and get their expert opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed approach. The meetings were well received, and the RAPP team is creating a summary reflecting the most important messages heard during these meetings to be shared with the participants of these engagements.
As announced in December 2025, the move to bring together administrative and corporate services from across the health authorities in one shared services organization will include several workstreams within RAPP such as privacy reviews and contracts and agreements. RAPP is engaged with the work to advance this shared services organization to promote a focus on these important functions.
