In an effort to reduce regulatory burdens on researchers, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has made a change to its Public Health Service (PHS) Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Effective 1 September, grant applicants will no longer have to submit verification of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) approval before submitting their research for peer review. Instead, researchers now have until the time of the award to demonstrate approval.
"If we're only going to fund, say, 30 percent, of award applications, why should researchers have to go to all the trouble of submitting for IACUC approval for every proposal?" said Anthony Demsey, Senior Advisor for Policy, Office of Extramural Research, at the National Institutes of Health. "This way, maybe the IACUC can benefit from some of the comments of the peer reviewers," he added.
NIH introduced a similar 'just in time' policy two years ...
