Over the past year, the Research Integrity and Compliance
team has been busy making substantial and innovative
additions to compliance programs to ensure transparency,
accessibility, timeliness, collaboration and consistency in
research compliance operations
Institutional Review Board (IRB), Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee
(IACUC) and Conflict of Interest (COI) Programs: The team continued process
improvement efforts for all programs throughout the year and started a monthly
newsletter providing key communications and transparent updates for the UNT
research community.
The IRB team created and updated resources for researchers to improve consistency
of submissions and turn-around times. The team maintained a throughput of 8.4
days processing 952 submissions in FY 2021, which included 539 initial protocols, 29
renewal protocols and 337 modifications over the past year.
The team also made fundamental changes to the process workflow for the
COI programs to improve end-user support. Through increased training and
communication efforts made throughout the year and the use of eForms and
the RedCap platform to automate their workflow, they successfully reduced
administrative burden on faculty. The COI program processed 456 conflict of interest
disclosures.
International Affiliations and Visiting Scholars: Further process improvements and
guidance documents were provided online, including a standard operating procedure
outlining compliance concerns and obligations for visiting scholars. Research
Integrity and Compliance processed more than 829 disclosure agreements in 2021.
Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) Training: The Responsible Conduct of
Research (RCR) training, with the Toulouse Graduate School®, ensured that monthly
trainings were provided to faculty, students and staff. A comprehensive program
schedule was provided to the UNT research community, and resources were made
available throughout the year online. Efforts are currently being made to also include
RCR training opportunities through the UNT Bridge.