Penn IRB Guidance for Student Researchers

This webpage provides resources for student researchers at PSOM. Further resources are available in the Human Research Protections Program at Penn.

• What is research? “A systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.”
• What is a human subject? “A living individual, about whom an investigator conducting research obtains: (1) Data through intervention or interaction with the individual, OR (2) Identifiable private information.”
• Activities that may not meet the regulatory criteria for research and/or do not involve human subjects:
  • Quality / performance improvement activities
  • Journalistic activities (oral history, journalism, biography, literary criticism, legal research, or historical scholarship)
• Human Subjects Research Determination Form

Additional helpful links related to Human Subjects Research at Penn:

• Penn IRB Student Handbook
• PSOM Office of Clinical Research
  • Trainings required for clinical research
  • Note: Long-format human subjects research training option in Doctoring will substitute the standard CITI certificate
• Note: CHOP maintains a separate IRB; click here for CHOP-specific details

IRB Info Session Recording