The Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Programs (AAHRPP) issued the final version of the first major revision of its standards in its eight-year history.

 AAHRPP streamlined the number of standards and increased flexibility in how to interpret them. It added or strengthened standards on global research, conflict of interest, community-based research, and data and safety monitoring.

As part of AAHRPP’s own quality improvement initiative, it undertook a comprehensive review of the standards, something that is planned to occur regularly. While none of the new standards or revisions reflect major changes in the requirements for accreditation, the revisions do reflect a major regrouping of the standards, providing a more logical framework for a human research protection program (HRPP) and better definition of the primary roles and responsibilities of the entities that comprise an HRPP, according to Marjorie Speers, Ph.D., president and CEO of AAHRPP.

Overall, AAHRPP has reduced the number of standards from 22 to 15, and the number of elements from 77 to 60. The Final Revised Accreditation Standards are at aahrpp.org.