Faculty Handbook
PENN STATE POLICY FOR RESEARCH INVOLVING HUMAN PARTICIPANTS
The University is unequivocally committed to promote, encourage, and facilitate ethical and responsible academic and clinical research efforts of Penn State faculty, staff, and students in the broad area of general or specific measurements of human development, health, and performance (see Appendix N).
Federal,* state and university regulations** require that the use of human participants in research be reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). The mission of an IRB is to ensure that the rights and well-being of human research participants are protected at all times.
*Title 45 of the Code of Federal Regulations, Part 46-
http://ohsr.od.nih.gov/mpa/45cfr46.php3),
**Penn State’s Policy RA14-“The Use of Human Subjects in Research”-
http://guru.psu.edu/policies/RA14.html)
If you are a faculty or staff member, or a student at The Pennsylvania State University, and your research (as noted in Title 45 Code of Federal Regulations Part 46.102 (d), Federal Register, 56, p. 28013, research is a “systematic investigation designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge”) involves the use of human participants (either directly or through records or other data such as specimens or autopsy materials), your research must be reviewed and approved by the University’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) prior to involvement of the human participants in the project. The IRB is supported by the Office for Research Protections (ORP), 212 Kern Graduate Building, 814-865-1775, ORProtections@psu.edu.
The following page from the ORP website provides more detail about what kind of project requires IRB review and approval:
http://www.research.psu.edu/orp/irb%20review.htm
The staff at the Office for Research Protections (ORP) is available to assist you with the application and review process. The ORP website is available at http://www.research.psu.edu/orp.
Failure to comply with these procedures could result in the disqualification of research data and/or the withholding of academic degrees.