Before I joined the IRB administration team, I thought IRB reviewers were members of a secret society whose sole purpose was to strike down research. Like others before me, I believed my research would be put on the IRB butcher’s block and be chopped into little bits. However, IRB administrators want to see quality research out in the field and will work tirelessly to help guide researchers towards compliance to reach that goal. Read more
Human research rules have become a compliance bureaucracy, argues sociologist Sarah Babb in her 2020 book Regulating Human Research: IRBs from Peer Review to Compliance Bureaucracy, but that's not an inherently bad thing. The social and political climate the first research regulations were made in, and the enforcement mechanisms that would eventually take hold, have rationally led to the large and sophisticated bureaucracy that human research protections is today. Read more
Meet Maria G. Davila MD, CCRC, MA (Bioethics), who'll be covering the 2019 Advancing Ethical Research Conference (AER19) as a member of the Blog Squad. Members of PRIM&R's Conference Blog Squad provide an insider's view of the conferences by sharing their experience before, during, and after the meeting. Read more
As I was pursuing my doctorate, I worked as the compliance administrator for the IRB office. My dual-role afforded me an insider’s view into the challenges student researchers face when accessing IRB related information. As the newly hired full-time research compliance manager, I continue to support students new to research. I am attending the 2018 Advancing Ethical Research Conference (AER18) to learn how other compliance administrators support new researchers and build trust between researchers and diverse communities. I am particularly interested in how other compliance administrators support intercultural communication. Read more
PRIM&R's IBC Boot Camp, which takes place September 18-19 in Denver, CO, will provide information, tools, and guidance for IBC, IRB, and IACUC professionals to help them keep compliance intersections from turning into compliance roadblocks. Attendees will learn strategies for improving integration and communication among regulatory groups and investigators to best support research that is ethical, collaborative, and interdisciplinary. IBC personnel will have opportunities for benchmarking, sharing resources such as SOPs, and networking with colleagues in the field. Read more
