The motto of the University, Leges Sine Moribus Vanae, means “Laws without morals are useless.” It comes from a longer quotation from Horace, “Quid leges sine moribus vanae proficiunt?” the sense of which is “Of what avail are empty laws without (good) morals?”

The Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are federally regulated entities within the Penn HRPP with the mandate to review biomedical and social behavioral research studies that take place within or under the authority of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Medicine. The purpose of review is to determine if the proposed research meets certain established ethical, regulatory, and policy criteria to protect the rights and welfare of the human participants of such research.