Our Commitments
Our Mission
PRIM&R advances the highest ethical standards in the conduct of research. We accomplish this mission through education, membership services, professional certification, public policy initiatives, and community building.
Vision
We envision a world in which all who contribute to and benefit from research embrace ethics, welfare, inclusion, and trust as central to science and medicine.
Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice
Science is essential to the health and well-being of humans, nonhuman animals, and the environment. We believe that everyone must have fair and equitable access to the benefits of science.
We are mindful of past and continuing inequities in people’s access to participating in and benefiting from science. Working to eliminate systemic injustices in the research endeavor is at the core of our mission to advance ethical research. It is integrated into our operations and our program offerings, which are designed to facilitate an expansive and dynamic understanding and implementation of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice within the broader research community.
We believe that inclusion of a diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences is fundamental to the work of advancing ethical research. Our community is enriched by the differences among our staff, constituents, and partners, and we appreciate the intersectionality of the multiple visible and invisible dimensions of individual identity, which are shaped by lived experience and situational factors. We are cognizant that diversity, like all social constructs, evolves over time. We will continue to cultivate and sustain an environment of consciousness, inclusivity, accessibility, respect, humility, and openness to change in all that we do.
History
PRIM&R’s founding started with a small group of committed, principled individuals who gathered in 1973 to discuss the future of medical research in Massachusetts. Among the issues that most concerned them was the indictment of four doctors who were conducting fetal research at the Boston City Hospital. A second rallying point was the Controlled Substances Act, a new law that restricted research on psychoactive drugs with persons institutionalized in state hospitals.
PRIM&R's founders were also keenly aware of new research regulations developed in response to the exposé of the United States Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. That abuse, plus revelations of other ethical violations, led to the passage of the National Research Act in 1974. Regulations (45 CFR part 46) governing the protection of human subjects and mandating institutional review boards (IRBs) were also enacted that same year, followed by The Belmont Report in 1979. Both a new field and PRIM&R as a formal organization were born in 1974, and their synergies have remained strong and constructive ever since.
From the outset, professionals working with or affected by IRBs struggled to interpret and apply the new regulatory structures. PRIM&R’s Board of Directors understood that education was the most effective means of easing the process and promoting ethical behavior. PRIM&R’s first conference on human subjects protections in 1977 and was quickly embraced by the research community and federal regulatory agencies as an opportunity to discuss the evolving research rules. Subsequent conferences steadily grew in size and reputation. Buoyed by this early success, the board expanded PRIM&R’s programming to other areas, including institutional animal care and use committees (IACUCs), ethics of HIV/AIDS research, research with special populations, and responsible conduct of research.
In 1985, the Applied Research Ethics National Association (ARENA) was created to provide a professional home for those working with IRBs and IACUCs. ARENA had 61 charter members and was led for 25 years by a dedicated group of presidents and council members (many of whom are still actively engaged with PRIM&R today). In 2006, ARENA membership was fully integrated into the organization as a whole and became PRIM&R membership. To honor the legacy of ARENA leaders, the Membership Committee was formed to advise PRIM&R membership initiatives.
2023-2026 Strategic Plan
While PRIM&R will continue to do what we do best—offer high-quality education, resources, and professional development opportunities for research oversight professionals—our 2023 Strategic Plan intentionally focuses on areas for growth, expansion, and innovation.
In this time of global upheaval (COVID-19, a national civil rights and social justice movement, the use of digital data for research that outpaces privacy protections, etc.), PRIM&R and the community it serves face significant public mistrust in research, the increasing politicization of research, and substantive changes in processes to conduct and oversee research. In addition, as in other sectors, the research protections workforce and workplace are changing, as are the professional development and educational needs that support them.
PRIM&R sees an opportunity to set a path forward that is nimble and flexible, responsive to the current environment, and build on our current strengths. This path recommits PRIM&R to achieving a vision in which all stakeholders who contribute to and benefit from research share an understanding of and commitment to the centrality of ethics to advance science and medicine, one that expands our reach.
This plan outlines four strategic goals for the next three years. Across these goals, we place a special emphasis on strategically seeking out and leveraging partnerships with other organizations to enhance our capacity to advance ethical research. Central to this plan is our commitment to cultivate and sustain an environment of consciousness, inclusivity, accessibility, respect, humility and openness to change in all that we do.
Goals
- Enhancing the trustworthiness of, and trust in, the research enterprise by identifying, creating, and disseminating to a range of stakeholders information and resources that address the causes of mistrust and promote public understanding and confidence in research.
- Expanding PRIM&R’s reach to, and the membership, education, and professional development services we provide for, a wider range of stakeholders who contribute to and benefit from ethical research.
- Growing PRIM&R’s role as a thought leader, trusted resource, and influential change agent in the public policy sphere by developing and disseminating materials to inform policymakers and the public and increasing our engagement with PRIM&R’s membership and audience regarding policy issues.
- Ensuring PRIM&R has the financial strength to support its strategic priorities by optimizing financial policies and resources and determining funding levels and sources needed for achieving goals.