ResearchMatch: Clinical and translational research cannot occur without volunteers. Connecting volunteers with researchers is often the most limiting factor for moving research discoveries to the community. UMB has joined ResearchMatch, a network of over 150 institutions across the United States dedicated to advancing discovery and health for communities now and for future generations.
UMB is now a ResearchMatch Institution. Currently, more than 8,000 volunteers within a 50-mile radius of UMB are registered in ResearchMatch.
How to Use ResearchMatch
1st - ResearchMatch Training
Please attend one of the monthly ResearchMatch webinars. Meeting Registration - Zoom. You can repeat the webinar as many times as you wish.
In the meantime, please take advantage of the YouTube videos:
Tutorials
- How to Add a Study to ResearchMatch [PDF]
- Overview of Researcher Dashboard [Video]
- Adding & Joining Studies on ResearchMatch [Video]
- How to Perform a Search for Volunteers [Video]
- Selecting and Contacting Volunteers [Video]
- Managing Volunteers is ResearchMatch [Video]
- Extending a Study Expiration Date [Video]
- Extending a Study Expiration Date [Video]
Engagement Tips
To help you learn more about best practices in recruitment, retention, and community engagement from colleagues across the network and the CTSA consortium, use the links below.
- Trial Innovation Network Toolbox
Find toolkits around building community partnerships, recruitment and retention best practices, and more!
- RIC Recruitment and Retention Plan template Comprehensive recruitment templates for recruitment, stakeholder engagement, and risk assessment to help outline your strategy for engaging, enrolling, and retaining study participants.
- The Art of Recruitment
Learn how cultural differences and power differentials affect recruitment. This webinar describes strategies to establish rapport in genuine communication and tips to avoid selection bias. [Search by webinar date – December 8, 2016.]
- Faster Together Cultural Humility Coursera Course
Learn about recruiting, retaining, and engaging research participants in a culturally humble way. This course has a specific emphasis on recruiting individuals from historically underrepresented communities.
- Returning study findings to study participants and the general public
Access guidelines, templates, and examples to assist with disseminating your study’s results to participants and the general public.
- CDC Health Literacy
Contains information and tools on health literacy research, practice, and evaluation.
2nd - IRB Approval
Researchers who wish to use ResearchMatch to recruit study participants are required to submit an IRB modification stating the plan to use ResearchMatch as a recruitment strategy BEFORE registering the protocol in ResearchMatch. A contact message sent to potential participants by ResearchMatch will also need IRB approval. The message cannot contain names of study staff or contact info. Sample Participant Contact Message*
Submitting IRB Protocol Modification Adding ResearchMatch as a Recruitment Strategy
- In the Modification Information section, item 2, in CICERO, include the following text:
- “ResearchMatch.org will be utilized as a recruitment tool for this protocol. ResearchMatch.org is a national electronic, web-based recruitment tool that was created through the NIH Clinical & Translational Science Awards Consortium in 2009 and is maintained at Vanderbilt University as an IRB-approved data repository. UMB is a participating institution."
- "Below is the participant contact message that will be uploaded for this project in ResearchMatch: [Your contact message…..]”.
- In the Recruitment section, add the following:
- Section 1: “ResearchMatch.org will be utilized as a recruitment tool for this protocol. ResearchMatch.org is a national electronic, web-based recruitment tool that was created through the NIH Clinical & Translational Science Awards Consortium in 2009 and is maintained at Vanderbilt University as an IRB-approved data repository."
- Section 4: Upload your Contact Message in this section
3rd - Register as a Researcher in ResearchMatch
As a ResearchMatch Institution, UMB researchers and research staff have the opportunity to register as researchers in ResearchMatch and conduct feasibility searches of aggregate data. By default, everyone is registered as a researcher. Researchers can also act as a proxy for another researcher's project. To register as a researcher, go to https://www.researchmatch.org/researchers/ Please Note, you must have IRB approval to use ResearchMatch for recruitment prior to registering the protocol in ResearchMatch. Each researcher or proxy of a protocol should enter the IRB number in the EXACT SAME FORMAT or the system will register them as different protocols. Use the HP-000xxxxx format and DO NOT include modification #s or HCR prefixes.
4th - Register the Protocol
After you receive IRB approval, you may go ahead and register your protocol in ResearchMatch and upload your IRB modification approval letter there. The UMB ResearchMatch Liaison will receive a notification from ResearchMatch and confirm that the protocol is approved to use ResearchMatch and that the contact message is approved prior to releasing the protocol for recruitment.
5th - Recruitment
- How to Perform a Search for Volunteers [Video]
- Selecting and Contacting Volunteers [Video]
- Managing Volunteers is ResearchMatch [Video]
*You will not upload your contact message until you are ready to send to potential volunteers. When ready, copy and paste your IRB-approved contact message into the field provided in ResearchMatch.
If you have additional questions, please email them to ICTR-Navigator@umaryland.edu
