1) A document that provides the background, rationale, and objective(s) of a biomedical research project and describes its design, methodology, and organization, including ethical and statistical considerations. Some of these considerations may be provided in other documents referred to in the protocol.
WHO, Operational Guidelines for Ethics Committees That Review Biomedical Research, Geneva 2000, TDR/PRD/ETHICS/ 2000, p. 22
2) A document that describes the objective(s), design, methodology, statistical considerations, and organization of a trial. The protocol usually also gives the background and rationale for the trial, but these could be provided in other protocol referenced documents.
3) A document that describes the objective(s), design, methodology, statistical considerations and organisation of a trial. The term protocol refers to the protocol, successive versions of the protocol and protocol amendments.
Directive 2001/20/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 April 2001 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use, art. 2h