Entraves e potencialidades do funcionamento de

RESUMEN Etica en Investigacion, Comites de Etica, Revision Etica, Bioetica, etica. Studies like this one, about the potentialities of the Ethics Committees in Research (IRB) and the restrictions at their running operability, have scientific and social relevance. This study aims to identify the operability of the CEPs of the State Universities of Bahia/Brasil through the view of the researchers and the people that take part of them, and is characterized as a quantitative and descriptive study, approved by the CEP/UESB under protocol 134/2009, realized with 95 informers and analyzed by Sphinx Software. According to the obtained data, about 39% of the research participants considered the demand of projects submitted to the CEP very high and 49,5% classified the analysis time of the project as reasonable. The physical space of the CEP was considered sufficient and small by 32,6% and 29,5% of the participants, respectively. The quantity of employees of the CEP was considered very small by 37,9% of the participants. These data indicate that the CEPs need more institutional support and higher awareness of the academic community about their importance.