IRB Policy
Ensuring ethical oversight and participant protection
in research involving human subjects.
Ethics Approval Requirement
Effective 1 January 2025, the Princeton Journal of Pre-Collegiate Research (PJPCR) will only consider for publication research involving human participants that has received prior approval from an Institutional Review Board (IRB) or an equivalent independent ethics committee, unless the research is exempt under applicable laws or institutional regulations.
Timing of Approval
Where ethics approval is required, it must be obtained before participant recruitment or data collection begins. Retrospective approval will not be accepted.
Author Responsibilities
Authors must include the name of the approving ethics committee, the approval or protocol number (where applicable), and a statement confirming that informed consent was obtained when required. This information should be reported in the manuscript's Methods section.
Exempt Research
Studies that qualify for exemption under applicable regulations should clearly state the basis for the exemption. Analytical papers, systematic reviews, literature reviews, and other studies that do not involve new research with human participants generally do not require IRB approval.