Important Notice: Delayed Common Rule Effective Date

The Department of Health and Human Services along with 15 other federal departments and agencies have delayed by six months the effective date and compliance date of the revisions to the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (also known as the Common Rule) to July 19, 2018.  Additional information on the delay can be found on the OHRP website.

Moving forward as part of best practices, initial submissions should use the recently revised consent and protocol templates that can be found on the NU IRB website.  Studies that are currently IRB approved and still enrolling participants will be transitioned to the new templates at the time of continuing review.

This delay in the revisions to the Common Rule does not affect the National Institute of Health (NIH) mandate to use a Single IRB for multi-site research studies, which is effective January 25, 2018.  More information regarding the NU IRB’s implementation of the NIH Single IRB policy will be provided next week.

Thank you,

Northwestern University IRB Office