All research conducted at NUS that involves humans participants is reviewed on ethical grounds under terms set out by the NUS Institutional Review Board (IRB).
The NUS IRB provides for NUS Business School’s Ethics Review Committee (BIZ-ERC) to review, approve and monitor the ethical aspects of research involving human subjects, including faculty and students. Such reviews are permitted for Social, Behavioural and Educational Research (SBER), which involves minimal risk to participants, and do not fall under the Human Biomedical Research Act (HBRA) or Health Products Act (HPA).
The committee is co-chaired by Associate Professor Dan McAllister (Department of Management and Organisation) and Associate Professor Ang Swee Hoon (Department of Marketing), and includes members from various departments within NUS Business School.
BIZ-ERC reviews submitted protocols to ensure that the proposed research complies with NUS, legal and discipline-specific requirements for protection of human subjects who participate in research. Each protocol is assigned a reference number for use in all correspondence concerning the proposed research.
NUS researchers may access all IRB forms and guidelines from the NUS IRB.
Please submit the relevant SBER forms and supporting documents (e.g., surveys, interview/discussion guides, participant information sheets) via email to BIZ-ERC@nus.edu.sg.
To ensure the highest ethical standards are upheld, all investigators and collaborators are required to undergo training in protection of human subjects in research before beginning their research. This required training, entitled “Social and Behavioural Responsible Conduct of Research” is provided by University of Michigan’s online Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative programme.