Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A university IRB administrator earns the Certified IRB Professional (CIP) credential through PRIM&R's affiliated certifying body (CCIP) to formalize their expertise in human-subjects research oversight.
- Is an instance
An IACUC coordinator attends PRIM&R's Advancing Ethical Research (AER) conference and pursues the Certified Professional in IACUC Administration (CPIA) credential to stay current on animal-research oversight practice.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A principal investigator submitting a study protocol for IRB review is not, in that capacity, part of PRIM&R's core professional constituency -- PRIM&R trains and certifies the reviewers and administrators, not the researchers whose protocols are reviewed.
- Not an instance
PRIM&R itself does not review, approve, or fund a specific research protocol -- that authority remains with the local IRB or IACUC, not with PRIM&R as an organization.
Editorial commentary
What PRIM&R is
PRIM&R (Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization founded in 1974 and based in Boston, Massachusetts. It was formed by researchers seeking to ensure that the practical concerns of people doing biomedical and behavioral research were reflected in the federal regulatory framework then taking shape around human-subjects and animal research protections. PRIM&R now serves several thousand members across research institutions, hospitals, and companies, primarily people who staff, chair, or administer research-oversight committees rather than people who conduct the underlying studies. It is a professional association and education/credentialing body, not a regulator, funder, or accrediting body — it does not itself approve, review, or fund research protocols.
What PRIM&R does
PRIM&R’s work centers on three activities:
- Education and training for the two main committee types in US research oversight: Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), which review and monitor research involving human subjects, and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), which oversee the humane care and use of animals in research. Programming spans webinars, workshops, and in-depth courses covering the regulatory, ethical, and administrative dimensions of committee work.
- Professional certification, through two credentials administered under the Council for Certification of IRB Professionals (CCIP), a PRIM&R-affiliated certifying body: the Certified IRB Professional (CIP) credential for human-subjects research oversight staff, and the Certified Professional in IACUC Administration (CPIA) credential for the animal-research oversight side. Both are individual, exam-based professional credentials — distinct from an institution’s own research-ethics training requirements (for example, CITI Program coursework) and distinct from organizational accreditation such as AAHRPP.
- Convening the field, principally through the Advancing Ethical Research (AER) Conference, PRIM&R’s flagship annual conference bringing together IRB and IACUC professionals, research administrators, compliance staff, and bioethicists to discuss current regulatory, technical, and ethical developments in research oversight.
Worked example
A research administrator who chairs their university’s IRB, holds a CIP credential earned through the CCIP exam, attends AER most years for continuing education, and consults PRIM&R’s guidance materials when drafting local IRB standard operating procedures is a typical member of PRIM&R’s core constituency — someone whose job is administering research oversight, not conducting the studies being overseen.
Counter-example
A principal investigator who submits a protocol to their institution’s IRB for review, or a lab technician executing an approved animal-research protocol under IACUC oversight, is not typically a PRIM&R member in a professional-credentialing sense, even though their work is directly governed by the committees PRIM&R trains and certifies. PRIM&R supports the reviewers and administrators of research ethics oversight, not researchers as protocol submitters, and PRIM&R itself never reviews or approves an individual protocol — that authority sits with the local IRB or IACUC.
Related terms
See also IRB Coordinator and Commercial IRB for related roles and structures within the human-subjects research oversight system PRIM&R serves.
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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