Updating Equitable Research Compensation Guidelines for the Greater Toronto Area

You are invited to participate in an online survey. Before you agree to take part, please read this, and ask any questions so that you know what is involved.

Who is conducting this study?

Wellesley Institute is a research and policy institute that works to improve health and health equity in Toronto. The researchers at Wellesley Institute conducting this study are Dr. Brenda Roche, Dr. Christine Sheppard, and Anoushka Chandarana.

What is this study about?

In 2018, Wellesley Institute released guidelines for fair and equitable compensation in research. The purpose of the current survey is to gather new information on research compensation practices among social determinant of health researchers in the Greater Toronto Area to produce updated guidelines. For this study, the phrase “compensation practice” will be used to refer to both monetary and non-monetary incentives or reimbursements given as part of a research study.

Who can participate in this study?

We will recruit up to 150 participants to complete an online survey. To participate, you must:

(1) Be a researcher at a university, college, hospital, research institute or other community agency in the Greater Toronto Area;

(2) Conduct research on the social determinants of health, which includes health services research, as well as social, cultural, environment, and population health research;

(3) Have conducted at least one research study that involved adult populations (aged 18+) in the past year where you were involved in making decisions about research compensation structures.

What will I do as a participant?

You will complete an online survey distributed via SurveyMonkey. The survey consists of 26 open- and closed-ended questions that examine your research compensation practices. At the end of the survey, you can provide your institutional email address to receive a $10 incentive. Only genuine responses will receive the incentive. Genuine responses are those that are not generated by bots or otherwise deemed fraudulent.

How long will the survey take?

The survey will take approximately 15 minutes to complete. You are encouraged to complete the survey from a location with visual privacy.

Is my participation voluntary?

Your participation in this survey is completely voluntary. You can skip any question you do not want to answer and still receive the full incentive. You can also exit or close the survey at any time, and your responses will not be collected. For survey responses to be collected, you must go to the end of the survey and click the “submit the survey” button. Once you submit your response, it will not be possible to withdraw from the study.

Your choice to participate in this survey will not affect your relationship with Toronto Metropolitan University, Wellesley Institute, or any research team members or collaborating institutions involved in research, now or in the future. By agreeing to participate, you are not giving up any of your legal rights as a research participant.

How will my data be used?

Data will be analyzed in aggregate form, described only as a summary of all results, so that the information you provide cannot be connected back to you.

The findings from this research will be presented in a research report that will be posted publicly on Wellesley Institute’s website and may be published in an academic journal. The report may also be shared with other stakeholders through email and social media. The researchers may also present the findings at relevant conferences or workshops.

Will this study help me or others?

Completing this survey will not help you directly. The researchers will use the findings to develop updated guidelines for fair and equitable research compensation practices specific to the Greater Toronto Area.

What are the risks associated with this study?

There are few risks to completing the survey. You can skip the question or stop your participation altogether by closing your browser. Survey responses will be analyzed at an aggregate level only.

Will my information be kept confidential?

The research team will take all necessary steps to safeguard your identity and ensure any personal information you share with us cannot be used to identify you.

Survey responses will be collected on SurveyMonkey. Please see this link for more information on their privacy policy: https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/legal/privacy/

Survey responses will be exported from SurveyMonkey, and will be saved on Wellesley Institute’s private, encrypted cloud-based SharePoint server, available only to members of the research team. The responses will then be permanently deleted from SurveyMonkey.

You will be asked to provide your email at the end of the survey so that you can receive your incentive. Your email will be stored in a password protected folder on Wellesley Institute’s private, encrypted, cloud-based SharePoint server, separate from all other project documents and data. It will not be linked to the study data for analysis and will be deleted once the research incentive has been distributed.

All survey data will be completely anonymized, which means that all identifiable information (e.g. email addresses) will be deleted before analysis, and there will be no way to identify your individual response. The data will be stored on Wellesley Institute’s secure, encrypted SharePoint server and will be available only to members of the research team. All survey responses will be destroyed in January 2032 (5-years after the completion of the project).

Will I be paid?

You will have an option to enter your professional/institutional email address to receive a $10 electronic gift card for completing the survey. You must provide your professional/institutional email address at the end of the survey and click “submit the survey” to submit your responses and receive the incentive.

The incentive will be distributed within one week of the survey closing. It will be distributed as an electronic gift card from EverythingCard.ca to your given email address.

Responses suspected to be bots will not receive the incentive.

Who is funding this study?

This study is funded by Wellesley Institute.

Has this study received ethics approval?

This study has been reviewed and approved by the Toronto Metropolitan University Research Ethics Board (REB # 2025-436). If you have concerns or questions about your rights as a research participant, please contact the Toronto Metropolitan Research Ethics Board at rebchair@torontomu.ca or 416-979-5042.

Who can I contact if I have questions?

If you have questions about the study, please feel free to contact:

Dr. Brenda Roche (Principal Investigator), Director of Research

• Brenda@WellesleyInstitute.com
• 416-972-1010 x 257

Dr. Christine Sheppard (Co-Investigator), Researcher

• Christine.Sheppard@WellesleyInstitute.com
• 416-972-1010 x 258

Anoushka Chandarana (Co-Investigator), Researcher

• Anoushka.Chandarana@WellesleyInstitute.com
• 416-972-1010 x 258

Access to our final report:

We will post our research report presenting main findings of this research on Wellesley Institute’s website. Please visit our website to access the report in the future. www.wellesleyinstitute.com

Informed Consent

You may save or print a PDF copy of this consent form for future reference.