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.
In December 2025, the Province announced that it is acting on the early findings of the health authority review by bringing together administrative and corporate services across regional health authorities and the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) in a new provincial entity, enabling PHSA to refocus on the specialty health care services and related academic and research programs.
Change to research administrative services
A central research ethics board (REB) service and a single intake for operational approvals will be developed by the Ministry of Health RAPP team, in consultation with the health authority ethics and operational subject matter experts, researchers and other interest holders. Centralization for data, privacy, and contracts and agreements is being explored by a newly created project team at the Ministry of Health, whom RAPP will work alongside of and interface with. Changes to research approvals are being designed to bring process improvements to benefit researchers launching projects in health authority settings.
As this work progresses through development phases, more details will be released. While some disruption may occur as a result of these changes, RAPP and the Ministry of Health project team will work to manage the disruption and ensure engagement, clear communication of changes and timelines, and project piloting where possible support the changes. At this point in time, no change is occurring to current research approval services.
