Human Subjects Research

What Studies Need Approval?

All studies involving human subjects (including interviews and surveys) must be approved by an SRC or IRB before the project begins, with the following exceptions:

• Projects use data from a pre-existing dataset that is published and/or publicly available, and do not involve any interaction with humans or the collection of any new data from human participants
• Study uses behavioral observations only, in a public setting (e.g. shopping mall, public park), and ALL the following apply:
  • Student researcher has no interaction with the individuals being studied
  • Student researcher does not manipulate the environment in any way
  • Student researcher does not record any personally identifying data

Documenting Approval

If you are a regulated research institution, such as a university, a signed letter from the Institutional Review Board (IRB) denoting approval or waiving the need for approval is sufficient.

If you are not at a regulated research institution, you will need to form a Scientific Review Committee (SRC). A SRC is composed of at least 3 people, including a medical professional with research experience (for human-subjects research), an educator, and a school administrator. The SRC cannot include a parent, research supervisor/mentor, or anyone who is an author of the submitted manuscript.

This form may be used and submitted to JEI to document approval of a study with human subjects.

JEI is unable to form a SRC for authors as it is a conflict of interest for a publisher to arrange approval for research requiring it. Please do not contact us asking for names of individuals to serve on a SRC or if we can give approval for your study as we will be unable to do so.

Informed Consent from Participants

Most studies must obtain written permission from each human subject before they participate in research. If any of the subjects are minors, written consent is required from both the participant and their parent/guardian. In certain cases, the SRC/IRB may waive this requirement if they determine that the project involves only minimal risk (either physical or emotional) and does not involve the collection of any personal information. If your study requires informed consent, please include a blank copy of the informed consent form with your submission.

Please see the full ISEF guidelines for human-subjects research for a more comprehensive description of requirements and SRC/IRB review criteria.

While we follow ISEF guidelines in general, there is one notable exception where JEI has stricter guidelines. If the student author(s) is/are the only human subject(s) involved in the research project we DO require IRB/SRC approval for these studies. This is to ensure that the student(s) is/are not proposing any experiments that may be harmful to them physically or mentally.