Mason’s Research Development Services has just released exciting news that George Mason University is now a participating university member of Research Match. This is an online recruitment and education platform that matches people interested in participating in research studies with researchers conducting studies throughout the United States. This tool is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and offered at no cost to researchers who are conducting health-related research.
The mission of Research Match is to facilitate the completion of clinical and translational research with health-related outcomes and to make the recruitment process easier for institutions across the nation, and for you in your local area. All studies require IRB approval or IRB determination to be exempt. (Feasibility studies do not require IRB approval.)
What is clinical research? Research Match uses the definition of a clinical study provided by ClinicalTrials.gov: “A research study involving human volunteers (also called participants) that is intended to add to medical knowledge.”
What are health-related outcomes? Research Match studies must have a health-related outcome. These are outcomes that “reflect the effect of one or more interventions on human subjects' biomedical or behavioral status or quality of life”. Examples include changes to physiological, biological or psychological factors or health-related behaviors.
Examples of ineligible study topics that do not have health related outcomes:
- Consumer spending/decision making, business, marketing, politics or religion
- Ecological impact
- Architectural features
- Leadership styles
- Work force issues etc.
How to Register with Research Match:
1. Key study personnel recruiting participants should register themselves as a Researcher on ResearchMatch
2. Your study must be IRB-approved. To register your study, you must:
- Have IRB approval to use ResearchMatch as a recruitment method.
- Have an IRB approved ResearchMatch advertisement (also referred to as a contact message). Unlike an email, this recruitment message cannot include study team identifiers (like emails or phone numbers). Do not include embedded surveys or URLs. Maximum length is 2000 characters. (Please see “Example Contact Message” on the right-hand menu.)
- Optional: If you have approval and the ability to recruit monolingual Spanish speakers, you will need an IRB approved contact message in Spanish.
- Optional: Submit a REDCap Pre-screening eligibility survey for IRB approval.
3. Log in to https://www.researchmatch.org/researchers/ and register your study in ResearchMatch:
- If you are not the Principal Investigator (PI), then list yourself as the proxy. The PI will be emailed to approve you as their proxy.
- You upload your IRB Final Action Letter with the current expiration date, and an IRB approved recruitment message for ResearchMatch.
- The liaison will verify that you have IRB approval to use ResearchMatch and that you have an IRB approved ResearchMatch advertisement that does not contain identifiers.
Once you are approved you will have access to search for potential Volunteers and send them your Contact Message and REDCap Prescreening survey. Research Match also offers a Monthly Research Training (via Zoom) on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 2 p.m. (Central Standard Time).
Research Match is hosted by Vanderbilt University Medical Center ( VUMC). Research Match is a not-for-profit activity and is free for any participating site and their Researchers. VUMC’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) provides regulatory oversight of Research Match as a whole and relies on each institution to provide local oversight.