What is Research Ethics Committee (or IRB)?

• Committee which has the power & ability to give an opinion about the ethical aspects of a research protocol involving human subjects
• Primary responsibility is to ensure that all research respects the dignity, rights and safety, as well as the well-being of all research participants.
• To facilitate the good conduct of high quality research that offers benefits to participants, services and society as a whole 

Benefits of practicing ethical norms

• Ensures objectivity, promotes truth and knowledge
• Ensures lesser occurrence of error
• Does not violate universally acceptable ethical standards
• Prohibits immoral approach towards information/data collection and presentation
• Restricts misrepresentation of information/data and restricts researchers from being biased.

What needs to be reviewed by the IRB?

• Any research involving human subjects
• Study design [protocol, subject, sampling, and plan of dissemination
• Consent forms in local languages
• Research tools with translation
• Principal Investigator’s (PI) statement of adhering with proposed design and translation
• Perceived risk as stated by PI and proposed actions to minimize those risks

What happens post review?

• Post review, comments and inputs given by the review board are shared with PI of the study.
• After incorporating the comments/inputs, final version of the research protocol is submitted to CMS-IRB.
• After reviewing the revised research, an Approval Certificate signed by Chairperson/Vice-Chairperson, CMS-IRB is shared with PI.
• PI has to duly sign the Approval Certificate and a scanned/hard copy of the same is submitted to CMS-IRB for records purposes. This completes the review process.
• Any amendment in the research protocols, post issuance of Approval Certificate, has to be mandatorily informed to CMS IRB for approval, else the Approval Certificate stands null & void.

CMS-IRB Members

• N. B. Rao, Chairman, CMS (Chairperson, CMS-IRB)
• P. N. Vasanti, Director General, CMS (Vice Chairperson, CMS-IRB)
• Sushanta K. Banerjee, CSenior Director (Research & Evaluation), Ipas Development Foundation
• Subrato K. Mondal, Secretary, DESI
• Alok Srivastava, Director, CMS Social
• Paramita D. Mazumdar, Director, CMS Communication
• B R Patil , Independent Consultant
• Mumtaz Ahmed, Deputy Team Leader, CMS Social
• Sanghmitra Sheel Acharya, ,Professor, Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU
• Rakesh Batabyal, Associate Professor, JNU
• Ravikrishnan Elangovan, Associate Professor, Dept. of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, IIT
• Mayur Jain, MD Homeopathy, Consulting Physician, Holistic Healing Caregiver–Homoeopathy
• Helen R. Sekar, Senior Fellow (Faculty), V.V. Giri National Labour Institute

Documents Required for ethical review:

• A letter of request from Principal Investigator for review on letter head of the organization applying for review.
• Research Protocol describing study purpose, study and sample design, respondent details, ethical considerations, quality assurance measures and dissemination plan and stakeholders.
• All research instruments/tools (with consent forms) and data collection protocols (English and in local language) and a translation approval certificate.
• CMS IRB review fees is revised from April 2021 and new fee structure is:
• For institutions and professionals, Fee is INR 25,000/- plus 18% GST.
• For students, Fee is INR 10,000/ plus 18% GST.
• Cheque/ DD Should be in favour of “Centre for Media Studies”