The Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center (SMART IRB Ambassador)

Serving as Proximal Spokes, the national SMART IRB Ambassadors are essential contributors to bi-directional communication between the CTSAs, TINs, IRBs, research teams, institutions and the SMART IRB team. During the first phase of SMART IRB, the Ambassadors successfully built trust with constituents, drove and enabled sign-on to the SMART IRB Agreement, and served as an essential resource for trainings, workflow development, and dissemination of resources. Under the direction of Dr. Cobb at the University of Wisconsin, the SMART IRB Ambassadors will continue to represent their home institutions and other CTSAs as assigned as well as will work with other Ambassadors to bring positive change to all institutions involved. In addition, SMART IRB Ambassadors will serve as domain experts, respected by their peers, and work collaboratively to collect feedback from users, represent SMART IRB on national committees, and design and conduct pilot studies of potentially harmonized policies and processes. Importantly, SMART IRB Ambassadors will also identify a cadre of experienced super users to assist in the development of trainings and materials oriented toward preparing study teams for a smooth transition to single IRB review. In turn, the SMART IRB Ambassadors will be a key component to developing materials for, and encourage the adoption of, the SMART IRB Reliance Learning Compendium and the National Common Regulatory Portfolio.