New Purdue Institutional Review Board to launch July 1

Adapting a model to better serve the interdisciplinary nature of human subjects research at Purdue, the Human Research Protection Program will merge its Biomedical and Social Science Institutional Review Boards to form the Purdue Institutional Review Board, effective July 1.

This merger will eliminate boundaries in review and increase consistency for researchers and reviewers alike. The new Purdue IRB will meet twice a month (rather than the current once a month per board), doubling full board review opportunities for researchers. The increased number of meetings is expected to decrease protocol review time by half for studies requiring full board review.

Required composition of the board and quorum definitions will continue to follow federal guidelines. Membership is capped at 15 and will include one chair and two associate chairs. One associate chair will be charged with oversight of educational activities and the other will be charged with protocol monitoring activities, including post-approval monitoring. Details regarding the new IRB, including meeting and membership information, can be found online.

In addition, a cloud-based online system will replace the current protocol submission/processing system at the beginning of the new academic year in August. Also, in recognition of improvement efforts over the past two years, Purdue expects to become accredited by the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs before the end of 2019.

More information about these changes will be released in the coming months.