Institutional Review Board

Welcome to the home page of the Centre College Institutional Review Board (IRB).

This site provides information regarding the policies and procedures for conducting research that involves human research participants at Centre College by our faculty, students or staff. Additionally, these guidelines also apply to research conducted by other institutions that involves Centre College faculty, students or staff as the target population to be sampled.

The role of the IRB is to ensure that research conducted at Centre College involving human subjects complies with the guidelines set forth by the Office of Human Research Protection (OHRP) and that all participants are aware of their rights and protections.

Human subject research: Involves the systematic collection of personal or private data from living human beings. Any scholarly discipline may involve human subject research. Sociological, anthropological, and psychological studies often involve human subjects; biological studies sometimes involve human subjects. Increasingly, research in the humanities, government and economics involves human subjects. The safest way to ensure your research is in compliance with the OHRP guidelines is to check first with the Centre College IRB.


The information on this website includes:

  • Centre College Policy on Protection of Human Subjects

  • Information regarding what studies require IRB review and which are exempt. For details, see these links: Who Must Apply, Is My Study Exempt? and Class Projects

  • The Centre College IRB Quick Review for research conducted as part of a class project

  • Link to the National Institute of Health's “Protecting Human Research Participants” training module

    • [NOTE: ALL researchers collecting data on human research participants must first complete this training prior to the start of their investigation.]

  • Application Requirements and Procedures

  • Informed Consent Checklist

  • A link to the secure Centre College IRB Application Submission website hosted by Moodle

    • [NOTE: To submit your application, you will need to first request access to the Moodle site from the chair of the IRB committee. Once you have been granted access, you will log into Moodle and the website will appear as one of your courses.]

    IRB Resources