IRB stands for Institutional Review Board. Academic institutions, hospitals and many other survey creators have an organization which sets standards for the people who conduct reviews on the institution's behalf. If you do a survey for an institution there is most likely a published set of standards they must follow. If you are rejected and feel it was in error, you can appeal to that Board. Often in the intro to studies they make reference to their board. I personally was able to get a rejection reversed by appealing to the Johns Hopkins review board. A nice lady named Ginny answered my email, contacted the study people and they removed the rejection based on her direction. You can often find the Board's contact info with a web search. Not every study is backed by such a board however...
There you go. Good luck
