The development of assistive products requires the involvement of experiments involving human participants. While the informed consent process and Institutional Review Boards (IRB) are essential concepts protecting human rights in any medical, rehabilitation engineering and assistive technology research, they have not been fully established in these areas in Japan. The Japanese Society for Wellbeing Science and Assistive Technology has recognized the importance of this issue and has initiated an effort to establish a review board on behalf of individual research institutes to ensure protection of human participants in research studies.