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IRB Basics

Contact Us

Prof. Thomas Kucharski
Chair

Carina M. Quintian
HRPP Coordinator 

Room 2322C in North Hall
Office Hours:
Monday-Friday
9:30 am to 5:00 pm.
Telephone: (212) 237-8961
Email: jj-irb@jjay.cuny.edu

 

"IRB" stands for Institutional Review Board. Throughout the United States, institutions that conduct or facilitate research with human subjects – such as universities, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies – have created committees, known as IRBs, to review and clear research projects. These IRBs are mandated by federal law or are established pursuant to voluntary agreements between the institution and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. CUNY has such an agreement. The purpose of the IRB system is to ensure that researchers adopt protocols that protect the health, privacy and autonomy of the research subjects. In the past, subjects have been injured physically and psychologically by researchers insufficiently sensitive to their needs and interests. IRBs are tasked with reviewing the relevant research to ensure compliance with federal regulations. The complexity of the IRB process is largely attributable to the complicated nature of these regulations. These regulations may be found:

The homepage for the Office of Human Research Protections, US Department of Health and Human Services provides information such as:


CUNY Human Research Protections Program Policies and Procedures

CUNY Human Research Protections Program Policies and Procedures 

Please note the following changes, effective immediately, to the CUNY HRPP Standard Operating Procedures.

Determinations of Exemption from IRB Review
Research activities in which the involvement of human subjects will be limited to one or more of the categories outlined at 45 CFR 46.101 are exempt from IRB review. Researchers conducting human subjects research that may qualify for exemption from IRB review must submit their protocols to their respective college's HRPP office for a determination of exemption. The determination of whether a human subjects research protocol is exempt from IRB review is made by the HRPP Coordinator of the CUNY college with which the Principal Investigator of the protocol has primary affiliation. The HRPP Coordinators works in consultation with the University Director for Research Compliance and the IRB members of their campus.

Human Subjects Research Determination
To determine whether a research protocol constitutes human subjects research, CUNY uses the definitions provided at 45 CFR 46.102. Researchers who are unsure of whether their research meets these definitions, and therefore requires exemption or approval from the IRB, must submit a request for human subjects research determination to the HRPP Office of the college with which they have primary affiliation. The determination of whether a project constitutes human subjects research will be made by the HRPP Coordinator of the respective CUNY college. The HRPP Coordinators works in consultation with the University Director for Research Compliance and the IRB members of their campus.

Human Subjects Research Conducted by CUNY Graduate Students
CUNY graduate students must submit their research protocols involving human subjects research to the HRPP Office at the CUNY college with which they have primary affiliation. Graduate students who are not enrolled in a Graduate Center program should not submit their human subjects research to the Graduate Center's HRPP Office.

Multi-CUNY-College Human Subjects Research
When a research project is to be conducted in collaboration between two or more CUNY colleges, the human subjects research protocol should be submitted to the HRPP Office at the CUNY college with which the Principal Investigator of the project has primary affiliation. The human subjects protocols should only be submitted to one CUNY HRPP Office regardless of the number of CUNY campuses collaborating on the project. Please note that this change ONLY concerns multi-site research involving multiple CUNY colleges. Please refer to the CUNY Human Research Protections Program Policies and Procedures for information regarding the review of multi-site protocols involving collaborations with non-CUNY institutions or investigators.