SMU Office of Research – SMU’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) held its second briefing of the year 2015 to the SMU community on 26 Oct. This briefing session helped to provide the SMU community with an overview of the IRB’s role in reviewing research studies involving human participants. The IRB’s role in human participants’ protection is to assess the risks and benefits posed to those participating in research studies in order to ensure that the participant’s rights and welfare are protected. One of the outcomes of the briefing sessions was to ensure that SMU faculty, staff and students were informed of the current policies and procedures of the IRB.

During this session the IRB Chairman, Professor Gary Greguras, informed the SMU community on the overview of the IRB, the changes to the committee for the following year and the review criteria of IRB applications. He explained the criteria for which IRB approval would be required and addressed questions on IRB matters. The IRB chairman encouraged researchers to discuss their project details with the IRB should they have any enquiries on their studies. Professor Steven Miller, Vice Provost (Research) and Institutional Official, added that while SMU IRB would provide all the help that the SMU Community needed, it would also be important for SMU Community to support SMU IRB’s policies and procedures in maintaining a high level of standard for the protection of human participants.

During the latter part of the briefing, Professor Greguras also highlighted the recent changes to the review categories. He explained that some studies involved the use of manipulation or deception and IRB would review the risks associated with the usage of these methods. For studies which involve the use of those methods which posed minor risks to participants, while they would have been originally reviewed under “Full Review”, they would now be reviewed under a sub-category under “Expedited Review (Category 2B)” where both the IRB Chairman and IRB Deputy Chairman would review it. This would help to expedite the review process for such studies which do not pose major risks to the participants.

IRB constantly reviews its policies and processes in an effort to improve and better inform the community on human participants’ protection for research studies involving human participants. The next IRB briefing session will take place in early 2016. In the meantime, the SMU community can find more information about the IRB on the intranet or can contact the IRB Secretariat at irb [at] smu.edu.sg  should they have any enquiries. 

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