Guidelines | Institutional Review Board

It is a requirement of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University that all research/teaching projects involving human subjects must be reviewed for ethical appropriateness. The IRB or its delegates must determine that the benefits of the proposed research/teaching project outweigh the risks involved before permitting any experiment or study (including survey, interview, or questionnaire type of investigation) to proceed.

Applications involving human subjects (non-clinical)

Applications from non-academic departments and applications involving genetic work will be considered by the IRB Chair.

Applications not involving genetic work from academic departments will be considered by the DRC Chair concerned.

Applications involving human subjects (clinical)*

Applications will undergo either one of the following types of review by the IRB depending on the risk level involved:

Expedited Review (for proposals of relatively low risk)

A proposal will be reviewed by at least two IRB members who have knowledge in clinical studies. Based on the comment of the IRB members, the IRB Chairman will make final decision if ethics approval should be granted to the proposal.

Full Review (for proposals of relatively high risk)

A proposal will be reviewed by IRB in a meeting. The relevant PI will be invited to the meeting to present his/her proposal and answer queries from the PolyU IRB. Based on all the information gathered, the IRB will make final decision if ethics approval should be granted to the proposal.

* The “Checklist for Clinical Research” can help you classify if a study is clinical or non-clinical.

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