PRP offers free mini-consultations with a health literacy expert to develop easy-to-read study descriptions for your recruitment materials. This service is free and easy just submit a short request form and you will receive your plain language summary in 7-10 days.

Learn more and request a plain language consultation

More Plain Language Resources

Hemingway App: The web-based app allows you to paste text into the app to analyze complexity and highlight lengthy, complex sentences, and allows users to edit directly in the app to get instant feedback.

University of Michigan Plain Language Dictionary: The Plain Language Medical Dictionary allows users to enter medical terms and view alternative phrasing to simplify the description.

Canva is an easy to use design program for creating fliers, graphics, presentations, and more. PRP has a limited number of licenses available for use for designing recruitment materials.  UCSF-branded recruitment flier templates are pre-loaded in PRP accounts!  (One license per research team; licenses are available for 6-month periods.)

Email [email protected] to request a Canva license

The Participant Recruitment Program (PRP) operates digital signs in several clinics at UCSF Mission Bay for study advertisement. At this time, PRP is offering this service to study teams free of charge.

How digital signage advertising works:

In participating clinics, large digital signs display recruitment ads for clinically relevant studies. Interested patients can contact study teams using the contact information on these ads.

If you are interested in having your study advertised, please fill out the Digital Sign Intake Form

Once you submit the intake form, the PRP team will guide you through the process of creating the patient-facing recruitment message (Digital Sign) and submitting a minor modification to the IRB to add this as a recruitment method.

Questions? Email the PRP at [email protected].

PRP Image Swap Program

Do the images in your recruitment materials reflect the diversity of the population you are trying to recruit? PRP is offering free stock images to help studies increase diversity in study materials.

You can browse iStock Photo and TONL (Stock photo service specializing in diversity) and select images you are interested in, or PRP can help you choose images for your study. Please email [email protected] if you would like help choosing an image.

We’re offering one free image per study team at this time.

 Request an Image Swap

More Resources

Reflecting reality: finding diverse and inclusive stock images for your designs

UCSF Brand Photography Library (Free, UCSF Only)

Freerange Stock - Stock Photos (Free)

CDC Public Health Image Library - The Public Health Image Library offers an organized, universal electronic gateway to CDC's pictures. We welcome public health professionals, the media, laboratory scientists, educators, students, and the worldwide public to use this material for reference, teaching, presentation, and public health messages. The content is organized into hierarchical categories of people, places, and science, and is presented as single images, image sets, and multimedia files.

The Noun Project - “Icons for everything.” (Free and fee-based options available)

TONL -  Stock photo service specializing in diversity. "Find culturally diverse stock photos that represent the true world we live in."   (Fee-based)

Gender Spectrum Collection - Stock photos featuring images of trans and non-binary models. " This collection aims to help media better represent members of these communities as people not necessarily defined by their gender identities—people with careers, relationships, talents, passions, and home lives."  (Free)

Create a study website using easy-to-use templates from UCSF Web IT.

Step 1: Submit the request form.  To get started, submit a website request form. In the comments field, add that you would like to request the Recruitment Website Template.

Step 2: Plan your content.  To help plan your website content, you can request a free Recruitment Plain Language Summary (PLS). The PLS helps teams develop recruitment content that is readable, understandable, and actionable. Once you have your PLS or your own content, prepare a site mock-up using Study Website Planning Template.

Step 3: Submit for IRB approval As with all recruitment materials, you must submit your website content for IRB approval. Submit a PDF of the completed Study Website Planning Template in your IRB protocol.

Step 4: Update your site. You will be notified when IT has provisioned your website. Follow the instructions provided in your ticket email notification to log into the site, and update the content using your completed Study Website Planning Template.  (You can update the site while IRB approval is pending, but be sure not to make it publicly available until is approved.)

Step 5: Launch!  Once you have IRB approval, use your website link in study advertisements or in communications with potential volunteers.

Example sites using our templates: 

Template Example: A mock-up of a study website for a fictional study

Sacred Birth Study

UCSF Priority Study

More Resources:

Websites.ucsf.edu

6 Tips for an Online Screening Form that works

Four styles include templates for:

• 8.5" x 11" Poster
• 8.5" x 11" Poster (with tear-off tabs)
• Postcard

Template files available in PowerPoint and InDesign.

View example fliers

Download Template Files (Box)

More resources

UCSF Template Library

IRB Guidelines on Recruitment Materials

Where to Advertise at UCSF

+ About 1 week or less
++ About 2-4 weeks
+++ About 1-2 months

Recruitment Resources and Options

ResearchMatch is a secure national recruitment registry that brings together researchers and people who are interested in learning more about research studies. UCSF Researchers can use this tool for free.

Using ResearchMatch

Researchers can create accounts in feasibility mode to explore the tool without IRB approval. Feasibility mode allows users to assess how many individuals meet eligibility criteria.

To use the tool for recruitment, studies must obtain IRB approval (see instructions below) and request recruitment access in ResearchMatch. PRP staff will review the IRB documentation before approving.  Once approved, users will use ResearchMatch to send study recruitment messages to volunteers who meet the study criteria. Once individuals respond with permission to be contacted for that study, personal contact information is made available to the researcher within the secure ResearchMatch system.

Register on ResearchMatch

Instructions for using ResearchMatch

• UCSF Site Instructions (PDF, 100KB)
• UCSF IRB Approval Form (Word, 40KB)