An institutional review board (IRB) is a committee who are designated to review and approve studies involving intervention with human subject research with identifiable information. All research projects involving human subjects must be reviewed by the IRB prior to the study initiation.

The IRB at BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health (BRAC JPGSPH) is the central body responsible for the technical and ethical oversight of the studies conducted by BRAC Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) or any department or institute of BRAC University/ BRAC programs particularly related to research studies.

• To ensure research studies having scientifically and ethically sound research proposals.

• To comply with national and international guidelines of research.

• To assess the risks and benefits of research studies, and safeguard human subjects from the risks which should be maintained to an absolute minimum where the benefits outweigh the risks of the research.

• To protect the rights and welfare of humans participating as subjects in the research prior to the study and in periodic review too.

• To secure confidentiality of private information obtained from research subjects.

• Systematic investigation with qualitative or quantitative data collection, and data analysis to answer a question.

• Contribution to generalizable knowledge and can be applied to populations beyond the specific population.

• Intervention including a physical procedure or manipulation of a living individual (or their environment) to obtain information about them.

• Interaction with a living individual (in person, online, or by phone) to obtain information about them.

• Identifiable private information/bio specimen about a living individual to obtain information about them.

• Coded information/bio specimens where a link exists that could allow information about a living individual to be re-identified and the researchers are able to access the link.

IRB requirement might be exempted in rare and extenuating circumstances e.g. time sensitive studies, continuing studies with completed baseline report and pending endline report, working with only secondary data, etc. However, this would require approval by the Senior Management Team (SMT) at BIGD.

The following links are only accessible by BIGD members