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The AAUP office reopened on September 7, 2021. Contact information for all staff, including those working remotely or on a hybrid schedule, is available here. 

 

 

IRBs

Institutional Review Boards and Social Science Research

Report addressing the government’s rules for protecting human beings who are the subjects of social science research.  It offers suggestions for the improvement of IRB practices and recommendations.

Research on Human Subjects: Academic Freedom and the Institutional Review Board

2006 report addressing aspects of the federal government’s regulations for research on human subjects that constitute a threat to academic freedom.

IRBs Should Evaluate Risk Empirically

For the first time since 1981, the federal government is considering major changes to the regulations governing institutional review boards (IRBs), which are charged with protecting the rights and welfare of participants in biomedical and behavioral research.

Regulation of Research on Human Subjects: Academic Freedom and the Institutional Review Board

Local institutional review boards, which make decisions about the permissibility of research, often have no special competence; the AAUP recommends improvements. Read the report.

Current Research Review System Threatens Academic Freedom, New Report Say

Local institutional review boards, which make decisions about the permissibility of research, often have no special competence; the AAUP recommends improvements. (9/4)

IRBs Should Evaluate Risk Empirically

The AAUP encourages the exemption of interviews with legally competent adults from IRB oversight.

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Draft Report on IRBs Posted for Comment

Committee A’s Subcommittee on Academic Freedom and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) is now accepting comments on its new draft report, Regulation of Research on Human Subjects: Academic Freedom and the Institutional Review Board. The report, available online at http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/comm/rep/A/IRB, was prepared in response to potential changes to the regulations governing institutional review boards.

Regulated Research

Ethical Imperialism: Institutional Review Boards and the Social Sciences, 1965–2009. Zachary M. Schrag. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Institutional Review Boards: An Attack on Academic Freedom

This article discusses how institutional review boards, which began as safeguards against the abuse of human subjects, now impose so many restrictions that they constitute a genuine threat to academic freedom. Nichols considers the Canadian approach to review boards as a reasonable alternative.

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