Registered Name: Morsel Research and Development Pvt Ltd IRB #1-Behavioral Lucknow, India

MORSEL IRB No.: 427172

OMB No. 0990-0279

Organisation No.: IORG0009047

Status: International Registration

Registered with: The Division of Assurance and Quality Improvement
Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP)
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

MORSEL-IRB (a registered body since 2007), is an institutional review board, having representation of professionals from MORSEL, other like-minded organizations and independent consultants. Till date it has reviewed around 100 research and evaluation protocols from ethics lens.

What is Research Ethics Committee (or IRB)?

• Committee which has the power & ability to give an opinion about the ethical aspects of a research protocol involving human subjects
• Primary responsibility is to ensure that all research respects the dignity, rights and safety, as well as the well-being of all research participants.
• To facilitate the good conduct of high-quality research that offers benefits to participants, services and society as a whole

Why do we need an ethical review?

Relevance of practicing ethical norms is increasing day by day in the field of social research and evaluation, particularly in India, with around 1.4 billion population living in a religiously, culturally diverse multi-lingual society. Yet, in India, institutionalized review of ethical practices in non-clinical research/evaluation is scarce, almost non-existent.

Benefits of practicing ethical norms

• Ensures objectivity, promotes truth and knowledge
• Ensures lesser occurrence of error
• Does not violate universally acceptable ethical standards
• Prohibits immoral approach towards information/data collection and presentation
• Restricts misrepresentation of information/data and restricts researchers from being biased.

What needs to be reviewed by the IRB?

• Any research involving human subjects
• Study design [protocol, subject, sampling, and plan of dissemination]
• Consent forms in local languages
• Research tools with translation
• Principal Investigator’s (PI) statement of adhering with proposed design and translation
• Perceived risk as stated by PI and proposed actions to minimize those risks

What happens post review?

• Post review, comments and inputs given by the review board are shared with PI of the study.
• After incorporating the comments/inputs, final version of the research protocol is submitted to MORSEL-IRB.
• After reviewing the revised research, an Approval Certificate signed by Chairperson/Vice-Chairperson, MORSEL-IRB is shared with PI.
• PI has to duly sign the Approval Certificate and a scanned/hard copy of the same is submitted to MORSEL-IRB for records purposes. This completes the review process.
• Any amendment in the research protocols, post issuance of Approval Certificate, has to be mandatorily informed to MORSEL IRB for approval, else the Approval Certificate stands null & void.

MORSEL-IRB Members

• Bhartendu Prakash Trivedi, Managing Director, MORSEL (Chairperson, MORSEL-IRB)
• Bishnu Datta Behuria, Vice President Field Operations, MORSEL (Vice Chairperson, MORSEL-IRB)
• Mansi Singh, Research Assistant, MORSEL

Documents Required for ethical review:

• A letter of request from Principal Investigator for review on letter head of the organization applying for review.
• Research Protocol describing study purpose, study and sample design, respondent details, ethical considerations, quality assurance measures and dissemination plan and stakeholders.
• All research instruments/tools (with consent forms) and data collection protocols (English and in local language) and a translation approval certificate.
  • MORSEL IRB review fees is revised from April 2021 and new fee structure is:
  • For institutions and professionals, Fee is INR 25,000/- plus 18% GST.
  • For students, Fee is INR 10,000/ plus 18% GST.
• Cheque/ DD Should be in favour of “Morsel Research and Development Pvt Ltd”

Address for sending Cheque/ DD

Morsel Research and Development Pvt Ltd,
Morsel House,
D-51/B, Sector P,
Aliganj, Lucknow – 226024

Details for NEFT/RTGS:

Note: It takes around 6-8 weeks to revert with comments/inputs on the research protocols

For more information contact us: [email protected]