In compliance with NDUS Board Policy 611.8 ("Employee Responsibility and Activities: Research on Human Subjects") and out of concern for the welfare and protection of human subjects of research, Valley City State University has provided a formal guarantee to the Office of Human Research Protections, in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), that it will follow procedures which will assure the protection of all human participants involved in federally-funded research projects. To ensure equivalent protections to all human research participants, the VCSU IRB procedures also apply to all such research conducted by faculty, students, staff, or other representatives of the University, whether or not the research is sponsored by agencies of the U.S. Government. 

To comply with this assurance and with federal provisions (Protection of Human Subjects (45 CFR 46, 21 CFR 50)), the University has established an Institutional Review Board (IRB) to review research projects that involve human participants. 

VCSU’s IRB safeguards the rights and welfare of all those individuals involved as human participants in research, development, or related activities. Sharing responsibility with the investigator, VCSU’s IRB determines and approves the standards for ethical conduct of research involving human participants. To ensure adequate safeguards and to discharge the responsibility of the institution, no research (including grant applications), development, or related activity involving human subjects may be undertaken unless the Institutional Review Board (IRB) appointed for the purpose has reviewed and approved such proposed activity. The IRB’s Standard Operating Procedures are available on the VCSU IRB One Stop site.

Sponsor:  Vice President for Academic Affairs

Approved and Effective:  February 2010

Revised: December 2019

Revised: May 2021