What the Office of Sponsored Programs needs with respect to an IRB approval

The vast majority of grants, proposals and agreements submitted to the Office of Sponsored Programs (OR) for review do not require evidence of IRB approval as part of the OR submission. OR submission forms, including stock 136 forms, have “pending” as an option to be selected for the status of the IRB review. Federal and other grant proposals may also be submitted with IRB status pending, but you should consult the Request for Proposal (RFP) for the sponsoring agency to confirm.

Note that for Institutional Official signatures on agreements/contracts, and for the activation of funds, OR has different requirements with respect to IRB approvals.

•          Activation of an account number through Sponsored Projects Accounting to permit access to funds in almost all cases is dependent on having IRB approval submitted to OR unless the department is restricting the relevant part of the budget.

•          Signature on agreements/contracts requires IRB approval to be submitted to OR before signatures can be obtained only in cases where the sponsor’s language in the agreement/contract specifically requires that an IRB approval must be in place prior to endorsement. 

•          For Material Transfer Agreements (MTA) and Data Use Agreement (DUA) requests submitted in MyRA to send Pitt’s human materials/data outside of the University, the IRB will review and clear the request in MyRA. OR will obtain this clearance prior to processing the MTA/DUA. If an IRB approval is not in place at the time the MTA or DUA is sent to the IRB for review, clearance by the IRB will not occur until approval has been secured.

If you are unsure what is required for a particular action, please contact the Office of Sponsored Programs for clarification prior to submitting your documents.

Date

Friday, September 4, 2015