The Office of Research is expanding the IRB triage process to initial applications submitted to the Biomedical Sciences IRB following a successful pilot with the Cancer IRB.
The efficiency of the IRB review process is disproportionately impacted by a small, yet meaningful number of protocols that are missing standard information and materials for review. This increases the processing time for all protocols because of the significant time spent working to interpret protocols that lack the proper information to move them to IRB review.
With IRB Chair concurrence, applications requiring substantive revisions to meet the threshold for review will be withdrawn from consideration and returned to the principal investigator and study team. The Office of Responsible Research Practices (ORRP) will provide the reason(s) for triage as well as resources for the principal investigator and the research team to provide the missing information and/or materials required by HRPP policy, Submission and Pre-Review. Once the study team has completed the revisions, they may resubmit the protocol for ORRP pre-review screening.
Over time, we expect this process to improve the quality of IRB submissions and consequently shorten total time to IRB approval. In addition to the PI, departmental endorsers will also be notified of triaged studies so impacted units can identify educational needs and available resources to assist researchers.
For questions, please contact Cynthia Carnes, senior associate vice president for research operations, at carnes.4@osu.edu or Ellen Patricia, Office of Responsible Research Practices director at patricia.1@osu.edu.
November 17, 2023