Overview

IRB Membership

Institutional faculty (tenured preferred) and members of the community are invited to serve on the UCF Institutional Review Board (IRB) as per federal regulations. Members with varied expertise and perspectives are needed to enable the IRB to conduct thorough reviews of the research. The IRB membership consists of regular members and alternate members, including a diverse group of research and non-research related faculty and community members. New members usually start as alternates unless they have prior IRB experience.

What is involved in IRB Membership?

Members are appointed to serve for a two-year period renewable by a mutual agreement. The time commitment to IRB membership involves one Wednesday afternoon meeting as needed, plus the necessary preparation time. IRB meetings commence at 3:00 p.m. and last about 1 to 2 hours. Board members receive materials, including an agenda, new research proposals and other items for review, a week to ten days prior to each meeting by accessing the iRIS system. Members can make comments electronically within each application. The advance preparation also requires approximately 1 hour per each new protocol submission for review. The total amount of time depends on the number of issues to be reviewed. Additional time is required initially for training.

IRB Member Contributions and Responsibilities