Initial Submissions (New Studies)

Complete the following steps to submit your new study


Before you begin, please note that all investigators and research staff must complete the required education courses, gain access to the InfoEd eRA website, and complete several other tasks. These tasks can take several days to complete, so please factor that into your planning.
1

Determine if you need to submit for institutional approval

COMIRB's affiliated institutions each require investigators to submit for institutional approval prior to submitting to COMIRB. Please contact the appropriate institutional research office for each of the following sites involved with your research: 

  • CU Denver Anschutz Medical Campus, University of Colorado Hospital, Children’s Hospital Colorado, or Highlands Ranch Hospital: Your research may need to be submitted through the Human Subject Research Portal to gain institutional approval. Check the HSR Portal page for submission requirements.
  • Denver Health and Hospital Authority: Contact the SPARO Office at sparo@dhha.org
  • Children's Hospital Colorado: Contact researchstartup@childrenscolorado.org. Any study taking place at CHCO must go through the HSR Portal and be reviewed by the CHCO Research Start-Up Committee.
  • University of Colorado Cancer Center: Your research may need to be submitted to PRMS before COMIRB review.
  • Denver VA Medical Center: Contact the Research Administrative Office at 303-399-8020 ext. 2755 
  • CU Denver Downtown Campus: Research conducted solely on the Downtown Denver Campus does not require any institutional approval in addition to COMIRB review. However, COMIRB review is still required.
2

Complete the Application Form

If your research involves only the collection and analysis of data or biological specimens which were originally collected for another purpose, you are requesting a waiver of consent, and you will not contact subjects to participate in other parts of your project, your study may qualify for use of the Secondary Research Application. For more information, visit our Secondary Research Submission Guide.

For all other studies, the Application for Protocol Review Form should be used.

Please note: since the Application is a Smart PDF, it cannot open in the browser (which is typically the default setting) and must be opened in Adobe Acrobat or another PDF viewer program. To open the form, follow these steps:

  1. Using Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browser, click on the form to download.
  2. When you see the Please Wait message, click on the download arrow (top right corner, next to the print icon).
  3. Save the form to your computer downloads or another folder you can find it.
  4. Do not try to open the document from the bottom of your screen. Instead, go to the folder where you saved the form, right click it, and click Open With > Adobe Acrobat.
Download the Application for Protocol Review Form
3

Compile supporting documents

Documents should be labeled with the PI's name, page numbers, the protocol number (assigned during the electronic submission process), and version date. COMIRB electronically stamps consent documents in the top right-hand corner which covers any content in that area. Please do not place content in the top right-hand corner of these documents.
For document templates, please check the COMIRB Forms Page.
4

Submit the materials to COMIRB via the InfoEd eRA website

First-time users are encouraged to attend our Beginner's Guide to InfoEd eRa course (CTSA33); View the calendar of available courses.

To obtain a COMIRB number (24-XXXX) and create a new protocol submission: select the Denver or Anschutz campus from the InfoEd eRA login page. Then, click Human Protocol, and Create New Human Protocol. 

For help with your submission or the submission process, please contact our help desk at comirb@ucdenver.edu

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