Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Expedited Projects

The Office of Human Research Protections allows for some categories of research to be reviewed by one experienced member of an IRB, rather than a majority of members of an IRB at a convened meeting. The term for this level of review is "expedited" review. Given the volume of these types of projects that are submitted for IRB review, the term "expedited" does not mean a faster review than if a project required review by a convened board. The categories of human research that can be considered expedited from the human subject federal regulations by the PPHS can be found in our Guidelines and Policies manual on page 12. If you think your project is limited into one or more of these categories, you will need to fill out a standard IRB application unless your project is limited solely to specimen or data review. If your project is limited solely to specimen or data review, please see our instructions regarding these types of applications. We suggest that you include a memo with your application that indicates the category number that you think your project falls into, and why. Please include any supporting documentation with your application (e.g. survey forms, etc) to help the categorization process. If you are unsure whether your project is expedited, and would like to discuss the proposal with a member of the IRB staff, please feel free to contact our office.