ResearchMatch

What is ResearchMatch?

ResearchMatch brings together two groups of people who are looking for one another: (1) people who are trying to find research studies, and (2) researchers who are looking for people to participate in their studies. If you are doing health-related work, ResearchMatch can give you access to a large pool of participants interested in participating in health studies.

Access to ResearchMatch is granted on a study-by-study basis; that is, investigators must individually register each study. There are two levels of access available to Boston College investigators: feasibility access and recruitment access.


Feasibility access gives you the ability to view aggregate data on the registry population without an IRB-approved protocol. Using this level of access, you can see if ResearchMatch has a population that would be useful for your study. To register a study for feasibility access, you must:

  • Be affiliated with Boston College
  • Provide your Boston College email address
  • Create a ResearchMatch username and password


Recruitment access gives you the ability to recruit volunteers through ResearchMatch. To register a study for recruitment access, you must meet the same access requirements as for feasibility access. In addition, for each study you want to recruit for, you must:

  • Upload an electronic copy of your IRB approval letter, citing approval for the recruitment method (ResearchMatch) and the specific email language to be used
  • Be the principal investigator (PI) or authorized to recruit for the study on behalf of the PI
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Frequently Asked Questions

If you have an existing protocol and youā€™d like to add Research Match as a recruitment tool, you will need to submit an amendment to your existing application.

The following rules apply to contact messages on ResearchMatch:

  • No study team identifiers: no e-mail addresses, names of members, name of lab, name of study, address, phone number
  • Maximum 2000 characters
  • No embedded surveys


Example Contact Message:

Would you like to help researchers learn more about the causes of motor neuron diseases such as ALS and SMA?

Are you interested in helping researchers who are trying to learn more about the causes of motor neuron diseases such as ALS (Lou Gehrigā€™s disease) and SMA? Researchers at Vanderbilt are looking for study volunteers.

You may be eligible for this study if:
You are 18 years or older.
You are a healthy volunteer OR if a physician has determined that you have ALS, SMA or another disorder affecting the motor neuron or nerve.
You are available for one visit for approximately 1 hour.
You are willing to have a small biopsy of skin taken from a small spot on your leg.

The skin around the spot will be numbed prior to the sample being taken. The skin biopsy procedure is a standard technique used to look at nerve fibers in the skin. For this study, the researchers will use the skin cells from the biopsy to grow a lot of skin cells (called a culture) and these will be converted to nerve cells.

If you are interested in hearing more about this study, please click ā€œyesā€ so that a study team member may contact you.
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We strongly recommend that you contact ResearchMatch directly through their with any technical questions.

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