Responsible Conduct in Research Projects

Research Ethics Committees (IRB, IACUC and IBC)

Research Ethics Committees (IRB, IACUC and IBC)

The Research Ethics Committees of the Inter American University of Puerto Rico are:

• IRB – Institutional Review Board
• IACUC – Institutional Animal Care & Use Committee
• IBC- Institutional Biosafety Committee

These committees are responsible for ensuring that the University complies with state and federal laws and regulations, as well as with the institutional norms and procedures applicable to the protection and rights of human beings, animals, and biospecimens that are part of the research projects. .

The Research Ethics Committees receive requests for research that includes human subjects, animals or biospecimens developed by:

• internal professors or researchers from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico;

• researchers from outside the Inter American University of Puerto Rico who wish to carry out research at the Inter American University;
• research resulting from externally funded grants;
• research resulting from collaborations with third parties in which one of our ethics committees is designated as the lead committee for the review of the protocols through a collaboration agreement.
• students enrolled in graduate programs that require the development of a dissertation or research that includes any of the aforementioned groups.

People who require the services of any of the research ethics committees must complete the required training and submit the research protocol to the corresponding ethics committee for review and endorsement before beginning the interaction or research processes with any of these. . The identification, recruitment or obtaining of information from the subjects may not take place without first having the endorsement of the corresponding ethics committee.

Responsible Conduct in Research Projects (RCR)

Any student who works in research projects supported with external resources, or who collaborates as a research assistant to a professor in charge of a research project supported with external funds, must take the training related to responsible conduct in research required by the University and the applicable federal regulations. In addition, the student must provide evidence of having approved these trainings.

Other Research Projects

Research projects that do not involve human beings must also present evidence of compliance with institutional norms and the applicable state and federal regulations.