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What Is Research Ethics

Research ethics analyzes the complex ethical issues that arise when human subjects are involved in research. There are three main objectives of research ethics: 1) to protect human participants, 2) to ensure research serves the interests of individuals and society, and 3) to examine specific research projects for their ethical soundness regarding risk management, confidentiality, and informed consent. While research ethics has traditionally focused on biomedical research, different ethical issues emerge in humanities and social science research due to new methods. Research involving vulnerable groups like children or those without legal status also presents unique ethical challenges. Current debates in research ethics include what constitutes research requiring review, oversight of research ethics boards, and challenges of multidisciplinary collaborations and privacy legislation.

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54 views2 pages

What Is Research Ethics

Research ethics analyzes the complex ethical issues that arise when human subjects are involved in research. There are three main objectives of research ethics: 1) to protect human participants, 2) to ensure research serves the interests of individuals and society, and 3) to examine specific research projects for their ethical soundness regarding risk management, confidentiality, and informed consent. While research ethics has traditionally focused on biomedical research, different ethical issues emerge in humanities and social science research due to new methods. Research involving vulnerable groups like children or those without legal status also presents unique ethical challenges. Current debates in research ethics include what constitutes research requiring review, oversight of research ethics boards, and challenges of multidisciplinary collaborations and privacy legislation.

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Ali Haider
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What is Research Ethics?

by Nancy Walton, Ph.D.

Research that involves human subjects or participants raises unique and complex
ethical, legal, social and political issues. Research ethics is specifically interested in
the analysis of ethical issues that are raised when people are involved as
participants in research. There are three objectives in research ethics. Thefirst and
broadest objective is to protect human participants. The second objective is to
ensure that research is conducted in a way that serves interests of individuals,
groups and/or society as a whole. Finally, the third objective is to examine specific
research activities and projects for their ethical soundness, looking at issues such as
the management of risk, protection of confidentiality and the process of informed
consent.

For the most part, research ethics has traditionally focused on issues in biomedical
research. The application of research ethics to examine and evaluate biomedical
research has been well developed over the last century and has influenced much of
the existing statutes and guidelines for the ethical conduct of research. However in
humanities and social science research, different kinds of ethical issues arise. New
and emerging methods of conducting research, such as auto-ethnography and
participatory action research raise important but markedly different ethical issues
and obligations for researchers.

Research involving vulnerable persons, which may include children, persons with
developmental or cognitive disabilities, persons who are institutionalized, the
homeless or those without legal status, also raises unique issues in any research
context.

Research ethicists everywhere today are challenged by issues that reflect global
concerns in other domains, such as the conduct of research in developing countries,
the limits of research involving genetic material and the protection of privacy in
light of advances in technology and Internet capabilities.

In Canada, current debates and challenges in research ethics include the changing
notions of what constitutes research and therefore requires formal ethics review, the
oversight and monitoring of the work of Research Ethics Boards (known as
Institutional Review Boards, in the U.S.) at federal and provincial levels, the
jurisdiction of Research Ethics Boards in academic, clinical and corporate settings,
the increasing multidisciplinarity of research collaborations and pursuits and
challenges created by rigorous federal and provincial privacy legislation. This is by
no means an exhaustive list of the kinds of live issues there are in research ethics
today. Aside from the epistemological and philosophical issues in this dynamic field,
research ethicists also face anecdotal issues at the level of individual research
ethics reviews, systemic issues related to the institutions in which research ethics
reviews are carried out and social, legal and political issues related to governance
and oversight of research ethics activities

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