An HRPP is a collaborative effort between all those involved in human research. It includes institutional leaders, the institutional review board (IRB), researchers, faculty, staff, students and the community. The HRPP aims to protect the rights and welfare of research volunteers, by reviewing and providing support, guidance, and education to facilitate research activities involving human participants, their data or specimens, that is ethical and scientifically sound. 

The institutional review board (IRB) is an institutional group or committee charged with providing ethical and regulatory oversight of research involving human subjects. The IRB is part of an HRPP. 

The Brown Innovation and Research Collaborative for Health (BIRCH) brings together the research conducted by Brown University’s Division of Biology and Medicine, Brown University Health, and Care New England under one administrative umbrella. 

The overarching goal for BIRCH is to align the organizations’ biomedical and health sciences research activities to support research growth and innovation. BIRCH aims to improve the researcher experience, attract patients, recruit and retain diverse, top-class faculty and staff, streamline administrative support, and address barriers to growth.

Aligning the existing IRBs and HRPPs under one, expanded Brown University HRPP is one of BIRCH’s goals. 

Currently, there are several HRPPs across Brown University Health (formerly Lifespan), Care New England (CNE), and Brown University. The BIRCH initiative aims to expand the size, capacity, and expertise of Brown University's HRPP to streamline the administrative functions, reduce redundancy, and alleviate administrative burdens. The ultimate goal is to create an expanded HRPP under Brown University that will support all human subjects research across Brown Health, CNE, and Brown University.

The expanded HRPP will be at Brown University. Brown University Health and Care New England will rely on Brown University’s HRPP for regulatory and ethical oversight of their human subjects research studies. 

After HRPP unification, collaborative research involving CNE and/or Brown University Health can be submitted as one application in Huron. It will no longer be necessary to also submit applications separately to CNE, Brown University Health, or Brown University.

It is anticipated that the expanded HRPP will go-live in early 2026. Researchers at Brown University Health and CNE will receive updates and notifications as to the exact start date. Brown University Health and CNE will continue to operate their own HRPPs until the enhanced Brown HRPP office is ready to accept new protocol submissions.

The expanded HRPP will use the Huron IRB system for submissions. Training and resources will be made available to all prior to launch. 

Training will be offered to all research communities to build and enhance skills related to the Huron IRB system, Huron Toolkit, and navigating the ongoing support options available to you. Training will be offered prior to the start of the expanded HRPP operations and continue after launch of the expanded HRPP.

Active study records will, in part, be migrated into Huron as part of the implementation plan. Details related to data migration will be communicated nearer the time of launch.

CITI training is integrated into Huron so that completion reports do not need to be submitted and updated. In order to do this, all users will need to affiliate their CITI account with Brown University. The Brown CITI curriculum will likely change to support the diverse research portfolio of the expanded HRPP.  Previously completed courses will carry over, however new requirements will need to be completed.

While the exact number of IRBs has not yet been determined, the expanded HRPP will likely have weekly IRB meetings.

In an effort to streamline all inquiries, we have created a Brown HRPP Expansion survey If you have any questions, please submit the question form.