Step 1: Contact the OHRPP to confirm that a reliance is possible
Before submitting an electronic IRB application, please contact the OHRPP office to confirm that the UCLA IRB is willing to serve as the IRB of record by sending an email inquiry describing proposed funding and names of sites that would rely to irbreliance@research.ucla.edu.
Step 2: Obtain Institutional Reliance Agreement
If there isn’t an existing IRB reliance arrangement, once the UCLA OHRPP confirms that UCLA is willing to serve as IRB of record, the UCLA PI should contact the relying PI to:
- confirm that their institution is willing to rely on UCLA and
- UCLA OHRPP will provide an IRB reliance agreement, called an IRB Authorization Agreement, or IAA, to be completed by each institution’s Institutional Official (IO).
The UCLA OHRPP will obtain the IO’s signature on the agreement. This agreement formalizes the IRB reliance arrangement between institutions.
As UCLA has signed the SMARTIRB Master reliance agreement, if the relying institution has also signed the agreement, this may be used instead of executing a study-specific IAA.
Step 3: UCLA IRB review for UCLA + collaborator
UCLA IRB review will include consideration of involvement of the collaborating site(s)
