The roles, challenges and institutionalization of institutional review boards

Researches involving human participants are expected to be conducted professionally to ensure that the research participants are protected from any likely harm. In this regard, the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of an institution plays a very important role in ensuring the safety and rights of research participants. Though most institutions have an IRB that approves research protocols, official policy that all research must be approved is yet to be institutionalized. In addition, training and re-training of members of IRBs is not given sufficient attention. While noting that the functionality of an IRB is hinged on an efficient secretariat that serves as the clearing house for protocols to be approved, some of our IRBs do not have a working secretariat with dedicated staff. Indeed, there are a number of challenges that are capable of undermining the role of the IRBs. Other challenges in the operationalization of IRBs include: poor mechanisms of monitoring of research, financial constraints, poor data archival systems, lack of a standard operational procedure and guidelines for submission and evaluation of protocols etc. As the IRBs are expected to play important roles in research involving human participants especially in clinical and vaccine trials, this paper highlights the role, challenges and requirements for the institutionalization of IRBs.