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If you've ever seen a research paper that involved human participants like a survey, a clinical trial, a psychological study, you may have noticed a line in the Methods section that says something like "this study was approved by the Institutional Review Board" or "participants provided informed consent." These statements represent the ethical infrastructure that determines how research is conducted.
What is an IRB?
An Institutional Review Board (IRB) is an independent ethics committee, typically housed at a university, hospital, or research institution, that reviews proposed research involving human subjects to ensure it meets ethical standards. Before a researcher can begin collecting data from human participants, they must submit their study design to the IRB for review and receive approval.
IRBs evaluate whether the potential benefits of the research outweigh the risks to participants, whether the methods are appropriate, whether the privacy of participants is protected, and whether the process for obtaining informed consent is adequate.
Why does this system exist?
The need for formal ethical oversight of human research comes from a particularly morbid background: documented historical abuses. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service from 1932 to 1972, enrolled Black men with syphilis and deliberately withheld treatment to study the disease's progression.
Participants were never told the truth about the study, which ran for 40 years before it was exposed.
Revelations about Tuskegee and other abuses led to the National Research Act of 1974 and the Belmont Report, which established the ethical principles that are put in place when human subjects are researched in the United States: respect for persons (voluntary, informed consent), beneficence (maximizing benefit and minimizing harm), and justice (fair distribution of research burdens and benefits).
What informed consent means
Informed consent is the process by which a potential research participant is told everything they need to know about a study (its purpose, what it involves, any risks, their right to withdraw at any time without penalty) and voluntarily agrees to participate before the research begins. This normally takes place through a lengthy conversation between the researcher and participant.
For research involving minors, a parent or guardian must provide consent on the child's behalf, and the child themselves provides what's called "assent," their own agreement to participate.
What this means for student researchers
If you're doing research that involves collecting information from other people through surveys, interviews, experiments, or observational studies, you may need IRB approval, even as a high school student. Many science fair projects that involve human subjects now require proof of ethical review. Some programs will walk you through this process. If you're unsure, ask your mentor.
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