IRB Reliance (or “single IRB review”) is a legal arrangement that allows one IRB to review a study that is occurring at multiple sites or to review a single-site study that involves personnel from multiple institutions. Opportunities for single IRB review are established by entering into formal IRB reliance agreements.

The Office of Human Research now has service agreements with several independent, commercial IRBs: Advarra IRB and WIRB-Copernicus Group.

The SMART IRB Agreement is a national master agreement that allows institutions to avoid having to negotiate individual IRB authorization agreements per study or group of studies. Participating institutions may cede review of human subjects research to any other participating institution's IRB under this agreement.

Please follow these submission instructions for all other reliance agreement requests for non-SMART IRB institutions.