Working with Group Health Research Institute
Group Health Research Institute (GHRI) oversees all research conducted at Group Health, including reviewing, approving, and monitoring research by outside scientists.
If you’re interested in conducting research at Group Health, we recommend collaborating with a GHRI faculty member. This helps ensure that proposed projects are consistent with Group Health policies and that potential stumbling blocks, such as effects on the delivery system, are addressed. Projects require funding if any Group Health programming or staff time is needed.
You may contact our faculty members directly to establish a partnership based on common areas of interest. If you can’t find a GHRI faculty member to partner with, you may ask the GHRI Feasibility Review Committee to evaluate your proposal. The Committee helps GHRI leadership determine if an external project is a good fit for Group Health and will also try to help you find a GHRI faculty collaborator. Most projects initiated by non-Group Health scientists require the involvement of a GHRI faculty member.
Proposing research at Group Health in collaboration with an identified GHRI faculty member:
- The GHRI faculty member who agrees to collaborate with you, is responsible for guiding you and your application through grants development and research review processes at Group Health.
- You do not need to submit your project to the Feasibility Review Committee
Proposing research at Group Health without a GHRI faculty member who has agreed to collaborate:
- All proposed research projects that do not include a GHRI investigator are first reviewed by the Feasibility Review Committee. This includes research proposed by GHRI affiliate faculty members, Group Health staff or Group Health Physicians (GHP) staff, and researchers affiliated with other institutions.
- If you aren’t able to find a GHRI investigator to work with, please contact the Chair of the Feasibility Review Committee at least 6–8 weeks before your grant is due to the funding agency—especially if patient recruitment and review of medical records are involved. As part of the feasibility review process, we will try to help you identify an investigator to collaborate with you.
- If we are not able to find a GHRI collaborator, you may not be able to conduct your study at Group Health. In particular, studies that impact the care delivery system or propose to collect large amounts of Group Health data (or certain types of sensitive data) require a GHRI faculty member as a collaborator.
- Studies that collect Group Health data as their primary source of data must have their publications reviewed by Group Health prior to publication. This is to avoid inadvertent harm to Group Health and study participants.
- See Submitting a project for a description of specific steps in the process.