Prelims

Half Title

FINDING COMMON GROUND: CONSENSUS IN RESEARCH ETHICS ACROSS THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

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ADVANCES IN RESEARCH ETHICS AND INTEGRITY

Series Editor: Ron Iphofen FAcSS

Independent Consultant, France

EDITORIAL ADVISORY GROUP

Robert Dingwall FAcSS

Dingwall Enterprises Ltd and Nottingham Trent University, UK

Nathan Emmerich

Queens University Belfast, UK

Mark Israel

University of Western Australia, Australia

Janet Lewis FAcSS

Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK

John Oates FAcSS

Open University, UK

Martin Tolich

University of Otago, New Zealand

Title Page

ADVANCES IN RESEARCH ETHICS AND INTEGRITY VOLUME 1

FINDING COMMON GROUND: CONSENSUS IN RESEARCH ETHICS ACROSS THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

EDITED BY

RON IPHOFEN FAcSS

Independent Consultant, France

United Kingdom – North America – Japan India – Malaysia – China

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First edition 2017

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ISBN: 978-1-78714-131-5 (Print)

ISSN: 2398-6018 (Series)

ISBN: 978-1-78714-130-8 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-78714-309-8 (Epub)

List of Contributors

Background to the Series: Advances in Research Ethics and Integrity

Introduction

In many respects the genesis of this series is the result of a personal mission. In research practice and publications I have held an ongoing concern, even frustration, about duplications of effort and the ‘reinvention of wheels’. Unnecessary repetitions of scholarly work, failure to recognise or even be aware of prior, foundational outputs, pre-existing knowledge or important breakthroughs undermine research progress (Iphofen, 2016a).

One could reasonably ask if anyone really suffers from such failures. Clearly the individual academic who conducted the original work ultimately suffers in not being seen to make a contribution to the advancement of knowledge. But that may not be noticed except by the few who have access to the relevant sources. Indeed a researcher who appeared to take little notice of the original work may also be seen not to have made a valid contribution if the prior work subsequently comes to light. That researcher’s contribution is doubly diminished by the priority of the previous work and by its having been ignored or neglected. The body of scientific knowledge also suffers in that progress is necessarily slowed by unnecessary duplication. And society suffers in having to pay the costs of delayed progress and superfluous repetitions. Such costs might include repeat funding for activities covering similar fields of study or, worse, the delay in applying research findings that can improve human lives. Note that I am not here criticising the rigorous replication of previous research findings in order to test their continuing validity. But such replication would need to be fully justified in terms of its ‘value’ to making progress in science or in awareness of changing social or physical contexts.

So why might previous work go unnoticed or ignored? In the past there were reasonable excuses. Prior to the creation of reliable online search facilities, the ‘machinery’ for searching was manual, text-based, inefficient and could not be comprehensive. Many older researchers can recall working in places like the old British Library reading room, leafing through reams of card indexes in oak drawers to guess from a book title whether it related to their concerns. At other times the easiest solution was to patrol the relevant sections in the library for the small number of journals in your chosen specialist area and ‘spine read’ the shelves for relevant books. Good reference librarians were essential. Although these tasks were laborious there was still the delight associated with the unexpected find – a book on a topic that surprised or, more often, sent one off course! Or as bibliographic work progressed in the 1970s there were the indexed abstracts, citation indexes, the British Humanities Index, or Keesing’s Archives summarising news stories and so on that proposed timesaving opportunities. By the 1990s it had become possible to consider a field most thoroughly researched if one covered all such material and then followed up all the references in the published works. Nevertheless one still had to first wade through the paper by hand and it was extremely time-consuming and considerably less fun than spine-searching.

These searches were based on skills, professionalism, some intuition and the occasional lucky break. Students were reliant upon the advice of supervisors and academics on colleagues to ensure that nothing was neglected. ‘Have you thought of … so and so’s work?’ Partly as a consequence of scholarly preferences and the imperfections and selective nature of human memory, that source could not be regarded as thoroughly exhaustive. It also privileged concentrations of scholars and their close networks. There were additional particular problems accessing grey literature – government, NGO and corporate publications that did not always make it into academic research world.

There are many other reasons why previous and even contemporary research developments might be overlooked. The exponential growth in both print and, later, online publications meant that it has become increasingly challenging to conduct reliably comprehensive literature reviews. Each academic, not only under the pressure of formal research assessment practices, but in order to advance their own career might choose to ‘not pay attention to’ the work of others that might undermine their own claim to originality. Although contested, Kuhn (1962) offered some insight into these institutional pressures when he wrote of the constraints of ‘paradigmatic closure’ and the resistance to new ideas in science. To be sympathetic, there can be nothing worse than developing an idea, researching a field as thoroughly as one could only to come across, at ‘too late’ a stage, a piece of work that produced the same or similar findings only a few years earlier. Nothing is more dispiriting than just before journal submission or even a PhD viva discovering prior work that argues a similar point. Does one go for a re-write and admit a diminution of originality? Or submit and pray the chosen esteemed referees have equally ‘missed’ the previous work?

To repeat: what we must seek to avoid are the frustrations that go with working at length on a topic only to discover that someone has already produced the definitive response to the problem. And the related frustration is to come across work conducted today that takes no account of well-publicised research delivered some years previously. In addition we must guard against the temptation to corrupt practices that many see as undermining scientific integrity. These include plagiarism, failures to acknowledge prior work, biased peer reviewing and, in effect, poorly conducted desk or secondary research. Of course there is nothing new about such discreditable activities. For example, Sutton (2014) offers evidence that Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace clearly plagiarised the earlier ideas of Patrick Matthew without acknowledgement and Darwin then used his elite connections to ensure that he would not be scooped by Wallace. And although no culpability could be attributed to Einstein, Arthur Eddington’s famous experiment that confirmed Einstein’s theory of relativity was manipulated in favour of Einstein when Eddington threw out 16 photographic plates (two-thirds of his data) that seemed to support Newton’s view over Einstein’s (see Waller, 2002, on both Darwin and Eddington).

So when entering a new field of endeavour, how do we find out all that has previously been achieved? That is, how do we build upon already existing developments, avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, and the continual ‘reinvention of the wheel’? How do we maintain standards in research and ensure that much promoted principle of ‘integrity’? The constructive way to make progress is to assess existing previous work and see what else can be done that is novel, but without losing sight of the valuable insights that have gone before. In fact, isn’t that something all novice students conducting research are told by their supervisors? Do the secondary, desk research first. Do the literature review. Make sure you know what is available before starting to devise your own programme. Indeed many scientists proclaim progress as being made when ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ – ironically given the points raised above, often Darwin and Einstein are held up as the more obvious examples. And such eminent figures are rarely forgotten in the history of scientific success however ‘flawed’ some of their work might be considered to be in retrospect (Waller, 2004). But most scientists are ‘jobbing’ researchers keen to progress ‘the field’ while ensuring their own job security. So when making a contribution to the field, how can these ‘ordinary’ researchers ensure that future contributors are aware of what has already been achieved so that they, too, can build upon existing knowledge? There has to be something of an obligation on all researchers to seek the best, most effective means to disseminate their own findings.

There can be no excuses over the last two decades for neglect of prior findings what with, first, the Internet and, later, the World Wide Web. Yet I am frequently surprised at the omissions I find on the Web since so much has to do with the techniques that can be employed to bring some topics and sources to the fore and relegate others, if lucky, to the archives. Much depends upon the search engine employed and then it requires skilled ‘netsurfing’ techniques to sidestep excessive self-promotion to discover genuine research advances. In the pre-Web version of the Internet there were many scholarly networks that relied upon discourse (listservs for example) whereby one’s collegial and supervisory opportunities could be massively extended, even in the early days, internationally. These have been replaced by the more formulaic and potentially costly networking groupings such as LinkedIn, ResearchGate, Academia, Mendeley, and Kudos with their promise of professional collegiality that disguises a more commercial intent. Researchers are soon enticed from the basic level of networking to higher levels of the pyramid via announcing their ‘h-index’ to enhance their self-promotional opportunities.

Attempts made to ensure comprehensive assessment of foundational work include the promulgation of systematic review and meta-analysis. I leave the latter for another day since it raises so many other methodological issues. But I offer one simple example of the former. Clarke, Hopewell, and Chalmers (2007) looked at 18 reports of randomized trials. Only five of these reports referred to systematic reviews of prior research, no attempt was made to set the current studies in an update of the reviews and in the remaining work there was no evidence that any attempt had been made to set the new results in the context of previous trials. As they concluded: ‘Researchers and journal editors do a disservice to the interests of the public and others involved in healthcare decision-making by acquiescing in this situation’ (Clarke et al., 2007, p. 187). It is a misnomer and misleading to call a review ‘systematic’ when it is not also ‘exhaustive’ and ‘comprehensive’. So, yes, there is a loss and potential suffering when new studies fail to build on previous findings.

Laying the Foundations for Ethical Research

Nowhere has the constant ‘reinvention of the wheel’ proved so problematic as in the field of research ethics and scientific integrity. Yet nowhere could it be more important. There is no need to search far to find ethics codes across disciplines that clearly borrow from each other without acknowledging sources. Researchers directed to a plethora of ethics guidelines are left to themselves to judge those more appropriate to their proposed research. The same questions are repeatedly asked on discussion forums about how to proceed when similar long-standing problems in the field are being confronted afresh by novice researchers. Researchers and members of ethics review boards alike are faced with selecting the most appropriate codes or guidelines for their current purpose, eliding differences and similarities in a labyrinth of uncertainty. It is no wonder that novice researchers can despair in their search for guidance. More than that experienced researchers may be tempted by the ‘checklist mentality’ that appears to characterise a meeting of formalized ethics ‘requirements’ and permit their conscience-free pursuit of a cherished programme of research.

In fact, there have been some extremely valuable foundational endeavours in the field of research ethics and scientific integrity in the social sciences. But that these have often been neglected, ignored or insufficiently acknowledged in subsequent attempts to advance new approaches and knowledge in this domain underlies my argument. Stark (2012), for example, found ethics review boards did not refer to ethics codes preferring to create and sustain their own idiosyncratic decision-making processes. Still there have been enduring arguments regarding the origins of and the nature of the debt owed to, say, the Nuremburg Code (1947) and later the Belmont Report in the United States. And international organisations have persisted in reviewing and updating their ethical codes over many years. The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) (established 1949) updated their 2002 Code in 2015. Subsequent Declarations of Helsinki for the World Medical Association (Originally 1964 and updated most recently in 2012–2013) are well known and UNESCO built on their many human rights declarations in their Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights in 2005. The historical origins of many of these activities have been thoroughly critiqued elsewhere (see Dingwall, 2006, 2008; Israel, 2015; Israel & Hay, 2006: Chapter 3) and there are many elements of the rationales behind this foundational work that remain contested and there have been some perhaps not so welcome consequences of the allegiances owed to such biomedically inspired work in terms of a failure to refine and develop the essence of these exhortative principles in different fields of research. The two main concerns here have been with a perceived dominance of the field by biomedical ethics and that ethics assessment or review built upon such diverse (blinkered?) bases can be obstructive and undemocratic (as expressed by Dingwall, 2006; Hammersley, 2009; Kilitzman, 2015; Schneider, 2015; Schrag, 2010, 2011; van den Hoonaard, 2011; van den Hoonard & Hamilton, 2016).

Much time and energy could have been saved in the field of research ethics and research integrity if certain models could have been followed, not mechanically, but by recognising their core, common qualities and building upon them. For a range of reasons there has been a ‘hyper-specialisation’ of ethics and integrity as if they constituted two distinct fields (see Chapter 8) and publication ethics also appears to be developing separately (see the work of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)). The Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statements (TCPS) could offer a case of good practice in coherence. The first (TCPS 1) in 1998 drew together principles and values from across the sciences and gave recognition to the elements of professional good practice that applied to all disciplines. Generating a consensus among the natural and social sciences and the humanities was no mean feat. Admittedly leading figures within the social science community within Canada were not too happy with some of the vocabulary and terminology adopted. van den Hoonaard (2001) labelled it a moral panic and Haggerty (2004) saw the growing bureaucratisation of ethics a form of mission creep. In time their concerns were responded to which led to an increasingly consensual document in TCPS 2 that was delivered in 2010 and again updated in 2014. What the TCPS endeavour clearly demonstrates is that certain fundamental ethics principles do apply across disciplines and that such foundational elements might support collaboration within and across disciplines (see Chapter 9).

A similar example of writing ethics across disciplines is provided by the RESPECT project funded by the European Commission’s Information Society Technologies (IST) Fifth Framework Programme (FP5) (2004) which drew up professional and ethical guidelines for the conduct of what was classed as ‘socio-economic’ research but which, in essence, covered the range of social sciences (Iphofen, Dench, & Huws, 2004). The push for such a project arose from concern within the Commission that a considerable amount of the research that it had commissioned was neither well done methodologically nor was it ‘secure’ in terms of its ethical aspects. These outputs were being policed more rigorously in health and biomedical research but not so much elsewhere. RESPECT’s professional standards encompassed not only ethics but also respect for intellectual property, data protection and professional social research working practices – features now subsumed under the notion of research integrity. The project produced a series of guidance documents and a set of guidelines intended to form the basis of a voluntary code of practice covering the conduct of socio-economic research in Europe. The Code was never intended to be used as a means of applying sanctions but rather as ‘aspirational’; aiming to uphold scientific standards, encourage compliance with the increasingly complicated legislation on data protection, human rights and intellectual property, as well as ensuring the avoidance of social and personal harm to all participants when research was being conducted (Dench, Iphofen, & Huws, 2004; see also Meta Gorup’s Chapter 13).

Both the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the UK Government Social Research Unit (GSRU) were invited to be represented on the RESPECT project and were encouraged to sign up to this Code and make use of the support documentation. The desire for the Code to be aspirational grew out of a concern that it should not interfere with free and democratic social science, and the hegemony of research governance (Iphofen, 2011, chapter 13) where ethics serve more the needs of the institution than those who volunteer to take part in research. Equally the code encouraged a degree of reflexivity (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004) that researchers should be encouraged and allowed to reach individual ethical judgments spontaneously when ‘in the field’.

The ESRC opposed adopting the Code being concerned not only with what they saw as too limited coverage of anti-discrimination legislation but also the lack of sanctions. The core concern of the GSRU who also did not sign up to the Code was the practicality of applying it within the various government departments with their ironically diverse interests and objectives. ESRC later became firmly committed to implementing their more formal and sanctionable approach after the review of UK university practices by Tinker and Coomber (2004) for the Nuffield Foundation. This showed that the situation in UK universities was chaotic and unsystematic and whilst there were rigorous frameworks in some areas (e.g. the Medical Research Council) these were lacking in others. The sanctions approach was adopted but with the universities themselves implementing them, which has resulted in a continued patchwork of approaches across the United Kingdom. So much so that the Framework appeared to be ‘… uninformed by European developments’ (Israel & Hay, 2006, p. 56). The ESRC Framework itself also had flaws, some of which have been remedied in the subsequent two revisions – but fundamentally the ESRC ‘passed the buck’ to the universities. That is, sanctionable actions were to be introduced by the higher education institutions, not the Council. Similarly the Council originally offered no helpful guidance on how formal regulation should be accomplished. Perhaps this is not too surprising given the dilution of the ESRCs potential for effectiveness: ‘The Council has paid for production but spent much less on communication and consumption …’ (Walker, 2016, p. 13). But then … ‘Silence may be the fate of research funders, in the middle, squeezed between disciplines, universities and academics on the one side and government, decision makers, media and society on the other; their ‘brand’ is fated to be pallid’ (Walker, 2016, p. 2).

This outcome has not helped social scientists nor the autonomy of their professional associations (Iphofen, 2002a, 2002b, 2004). The UK Universities’ move to a sanctionable pre-emptive ethics structure is partly related to dirigisme over research policy epitomised by funding relationships such as that of the ESRC and a general centralization of control in universities which are increasingly concerned with their potential corporate liability and image. This is exacerbated by universities’ need to compete in the market for students, as well as for research funding promoting a culture of risk aversion and professional research indemnity. This conservatism challenges blue skies thinking. It is also a serious threat to academic freedom as Robert Dingwall has pointed out: ‘… the benefits attributed to these ethics review regimes are wholly disproportionate to the losses that are generated for all citizens. The regulation of research ethics must be reformed because it obstructs innovation, creates profound areas of ignorance, and infantilizes human subjects’ (Dingwall, 2016, chapter 1, p. 25).

In Canada the problem may not be so acute where although the TCPS had the force of institutional policy behind it, it did not oblige research institutions to impose sanctions for failure to comply. The impact of this initiative is difficult to measure. But it is clear that researchers in Canada followed the principles of TCPS since it was a requirement to gain funds from their Research Councils. However its reach did not extend further than where its ‘compliance requirements’ could be applied. The Australian 2007 National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research is a requirement not just for projects that receive research funds but for institutions that apply for ARC/NHMRC funding. Other organisations (like the government science research agency, CSIRO) have voluntarily adopted the National Statement (Israel, Allen, & Thomson, 2016; NHMRC, 2007). The situation in the United States’ Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) was different in that they have become concerned with ensuring that risks are avoided which threaten the institution in which those conducting the research are located (see again Schneider, 2015; Schrag, 2010). The key danger is of this increasingly happening in the United Kingdom too. This has evidently led to risk aversion and not risk awareness – which should be the fundamental function of ethical review. This also occurs when reviewers assess risk reduction in isolation rather than seeing risks as being commensurate with potential benefits (which is the position taken by the Australian National Statement). Examination of ethical issues should be taking place at a lower level within the University hierarchy – that is, at the research ‘coalface’ – so that the problems researchers are liable to face in the field will be adequately confronted and supported by those with intimate knowledge of these issues (Wynn, 2016). This is what I have maintained elsewhere as the vital distinction between ‘research governance’ and ‘independent ethics review’ (Iphofen, 2011: Chapter 13 and passim).

Deference was given to the RESPECT outcomes in a variety of arenas, such as during conference presentations and in some EC research proposals, but it did nothing to discourage different nations, different professional associations, and/or research funding bodies to start from scratch and draw up their ‘own’ codes and guidelines that occasionally paid allegiance to RESPECT, but generally seemed unaware of the foundational work or chose to ignore it. Such was the case within the European Commission itself. For example, no mention of it was made in preparation for ethical review in the sixth framework programme (FP6). Barbara Rhode (then Head of the Ethics and Science Unit within DG Research) commissioned Kathinka Evers from Lund University in Sweden to explore more or less the same questions about ethical standards as RESPECT was in process of addressing. Evers’ brief was to include the whole European Research Area (ERA) (see Evers, 2004). She came up with fairly similar conclusions about the uneven distribution of ethics standards across countries, disciplines and professions although the emphasis appeared to be on biomedical sciences and with little coverage of social sciences. No mention of RESPECT was made in her Report. Similarly, those working on RESPECT were not informed of Evers’ work (nor did we know of Evers’ earlier foundational work – see Evers, 2001). This observation is not just a specific criticism of how the different Directorates within the EC operate – but certainly points to how lessons could be learned from parallel projects. And this oversight vindicates the central thesis outlined here: for whatever reason(s) there was not enough sharing of developments or cross-fertilisation of ideas taking place; and despite the extensive literature searching the RESPECT team conducted, we missed some essential earlier and current work.

There was no mention of RESPECT within the European Textbook on Ethics in Research (Hughes et al., 2010) funded under the Science in Society theme of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Commission – nor, for that matter, did it mention of Evers’ review. Put together by a team of specialists in bioethics education and training from Keele University in the United Kingdom, the textbook’s intention was to cover the range of natural and social scientific work involving human participants. It is fair to say that a similar level of ignorance appears to have been applied subsequently to this work. While training events based on the Textbook continue to be delivered it is hard if not impossible to assess the nature and extent of its impact. It seems certainly to have been largely ignored by the social sciences. It also seems to be the case that if such work is to be remembered and applied it remains up to the authors of the work to continue to promote it themselves.

Interest in research ethics has been intermittently resuscitated within European Union institutions. This is partly due to the increasing importance of interdisciplinary research as well as the Commission’s experiences with ethical review and ethical research practice across the sciences. Again these developments appear to depend upon the will and initiative of dedicated individuals. A conference in May 2011 on ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ (RRI) across all disciplines followed up on the original idea for RRI by von Schomberg (2011). The conference’s aim was to develop an aspirational statement of European Research Values post-FP7 with a view to the Horizon 2020 programme of research. The focus continued to be aspirational as opposed to seeking sanctionable approaches to these matters. The threat of the research governance model with its tendency to risk aversion was seen as inhibiting academic ‘freedom’ and a disincentive to researcher buy-in. More importantly, ethics and integrity were advocated as being necessarily woven into research projects from the start and throughout their duration, not just in a one off ethics review exercise (see https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/responsible-research-innovation).

This has resulted in at least two funded projects to develop the concept of RRI – NUCLEUS (http://nucleus-project.eu/the-project/responsible-research-and-innovation/) and CONSIDER (http://www.consider-project.eu/home) But, once more, at the time of writing, neither project seems aware of, or at least makes no reference to the work of the other. And neither does either project link to two other current EU projects: one of which is concerned to promote integrity as a key dimension of research excellence – PRINTEGER (https://printeger.eu/); and the other with a primary focus on bioethics and global health, which is to develop a Global Ethics Code (TRUST http://trust-project.eu). It will be instructive to discover what impact any of these models have on future developments for research ethics and integrity at a European or even a global level. It will also be of interest to see whether their work is used, incorporated or, like so much preceding work, ignored and forgotten once the deliverables have been submitted (see e.g. Tolich & Ferguson, 2014). There may be more such projects of which I myself am unaware – hence my point that ethics codes exist in silos. Of course, there may be some advantage to some ‘independence of operation’ and subsequent seeking of a triangulation which could enhance the value of these independent actions. The problem then becomes how to bring the disparate projects together.

The reluctance to build upon prior work in the social sciences lies in the temptation to see them as needing to be subjected to the same rigours as the biomedical sciences where, many would argue, the ‘foundational’ work has already been accomplished (e.g. as with Beauchamp & Childress, 2009). So while it is true that part of the success of the TCPS 2 was the ability to draw out principles across all the sciences, it also has force due to its application as a funding requirement. Such an ‘obligation’ does represent another form of compliance and is perhaps not the best way to encourage ‘blue skies’ approaches to the social sciences. But there were subsequent attempts in Europe to promote research ethics in the social sciences (SSH HORIZONS, 2013; Sutrop & Florea, 2010) and to make a positive case for an improved review of social science research that ‘harmonised’ with existing systems of ethical review. Harmonisation need not be assumed to be a self-evident good, although that suits the European integration project. There may be good cultural and geopolitical reasons for diversities of approach. One could even envisage respectable arguments for regulatory competition that would allow the best solutions to emerge from the marketplace for innovation. This impulse is not the same as achieving a common regulatory space for research on dangerous pathogens or environmental releases.

Recent ‘harmonisation’ attempts in Europe might be seen in such a light. Thus the SATORI Project (summarised here in Chapter 15) commenced in 2014 under FP7 with the intention of improving ethical assessment practices and strengthening respect for ethical principles in research and innovation. Key to its success, as suggested above, will be the extent to which it recognises and builds upon prior foundational work. And while what is offered here is a reasonable representation of the main report, it may not do justice to the more detailed work on the social sciences, particularly the acceptance there of the inappropriateness of principlism and the lack of consensus on whether formal review was appropriate – something we have found continually emphasised throughout the AcSS consensus work. The chapter leans more towards an unexamined assumption that harmonisation rather than subsidiarity is the best future and appears more critical of those countries that have decided a formal system of ethics regulation is inappropriate for the social sciences. In a way, this is very much what would be expected from an older generation of EU thinking about the desirability of maximum harmonisation in the interests of the single market and ‘ever closer union’ rather than the contemporary focus in at least some parts of the Commission on distinguishing where harmonisation is essential and where matters can be left with member states. If there is a single market in pharmaceuticals, then clearly a common regulatory approach to the research on which those products are based is necessary. However, much social science is nationally specific, in which case, there may be a much weaker case for seeking harmonisation rather than respecting diversity and encouraging regulatory competition between member states. On a less vital point the characterisation of the US system as less regulatory is rather puzzling, particularly given the number of social science complaints at the actions of IRBs. Generic surveys of this nature can lead to an ‘acceptance’ of respondents’ views about formal requirements which may not match practice on the ground. In France, for example, there is a strong biomedical regulatory system on paper but doctors are actually allowed to make their own judgments because of the entrenched cultural understandings about medicine as an autonomous liberal profession. It might be necessary to create the appearance of a regulatory system to participate in collaborations with the United States or to access EU funding but its impact is pretty minimal. This could apply to the ethical assessment practices reported and summarised by SATORI. It is really necessary to attempt to get ‘behind the scenes’ to fully understand what is actually happening in practice.

In June 2015 Science Europe conducted a workshop on ‘Ethical Protocols and Standards for Research in Social Sciences Today’ bringing together a range of stakeholders across Europe to discuss ethics in social sciences. A summary of the outcomes of this event is provided in Chapter 14. In many respects an event such as this further proves the points being made here. Very little, if any, acknowledgement of the multiplicity of prior work on ethics in social science research was made during this event and in the summary Report. Reading the Workshop Report (Lombardo, 2015) one would almost think no consideration had been given to these issues before and that this was ‘fresh thinking’ on the subject. It clearly wasn’t obvious and when one examines the substantive content there emerges something of a utopian theme that all ethical problems that social scientists experience could be resolved by better sets of guidelines and improved expertise on ethics review committees. They clearly can’t be and the previous experiences cited earlier further demonstrate this.

Critical reflections on this 2015 Workshop were generously received by the organizer of the Workshop (Gabi Lombardo) and have been somewhat mirrored in the chapter she produced for this volume. And in fairness, this chapter was commissioned to summarise the substance of the Workshop and not to develop a critical stance upon the outcomes. But the range of issues raised illustrates the lack of resolution in some areas and highlights the topics still to be revisited. For example the term ‘research governance’ is applied without distinguishing it from ‘independent ethical review’ and the range of international variation in the existence of formal/mandatory ethics review committees is not discussed. In many places there are no national guidelines and even less ethics review arrangements. So it would have been helpful to have shown where the gaps are in social science review in Europe and what might be the advantages and disadvantages to social scientists of falling outside existing governance arrangements – or perhaps even not needing them. The need to sustain a distinction between research ethics and research integrity was not covered and, finally, the degree to which arrangements in Europe determine practice outside Europe and whether or not they should. Do practices from the European Research Council and/or the European Commission, for example, compromise varying local arrangements in lower/middle-income countries (LMICs)? It may be that the TRUST consortium referred to above can address such issues.

The European Research Council held a conference in November 2015 Ethics in research – new challenges from the social sciences again drawing upon a range of esteemed international experts in the field. While this conference turned out to be a useful networking event for those present, it truly did not bring anything ‘new’ to the debate. Topics covered were pre-determined by the ERC and included the standard ones: data protection in social sciences (problems of data merging and sharing, big data and public data); informed consent and vulnerable populations; unexpected findings and the misuse of scientific results; ethics issues linked to interdisciplinary projects (say between social sciences and life sciences); research conducted in emerging countries or countries at risk and so on. Of course there were competent and informative presentations from the international experts and while novice researchers and some EC Project Officers will have learned much from the meeting, it did not ‘move us on’ much further from the extant foundational work – much of which could still be located on EC websites. An opportunity was lost to do more than transmit knowledge from experts to stakeholders – the ERC might have taken advantage of the expertise there to seed new ideas and approaches through extended conversation.

The cumulative point made here is a need to make progress on the basis of existing understanding and stop repeatedly covering the same ground. If risks of harm to the public and to researchers are to be kept to a minimum and if professional standards in the conduct of scientific research are to be maintained, the more that fundamental understandings of ethical behaviour in research are shared the better. If progress is made in one sphere all gain from it being generally acknowledged and understood. If foundational work is conducted all gain from being able to build on and develop further that work.

Nor can it be assumed that formal ethics review committees are able to resolve the dilemmas or meet the challenges involved. Enough has been written about such review bodies to make their limitations clear. Crucially they cannot follow the researcher into the field to monitor their every action, they cannot anticipate all of the emergent ethical dilemmas nor, even, follow through to the publication of findings. There is no adequate penalty for neglect through incompetence, nor worse, for conscious omission of prior research. We have to rely upon improving the literature search skills together with the ‘virtues’ of the individual researcher alongside the skills of journal and grant reviewers. We need constantly to monitor scientific integrity at the corporate and at the individual level. These are issues of ‘quality’ as well as morality.

It is against this background that a small group of colleagues in the UK Academy of Social Science (AcSS) started to work together to find a way to confront these problems and lay a foundation for research ethics and scientific integrity that drew together past work, that established an approach for moving forward and to locate foundational work that could be referred to and drawn upon in a sustainable manner – hence this Book Series. Again this is an approach that I have advocated for some time (Iphofen, 2010a, 2010b) and this first volume is delivered as a starting point but also as the culmination of the work of the AcSS Working Group that has been seeking to secure a consensus approach to research ethics across the social sciences.

The Approach and Treatment

To claim a foundational position for research ethics does not mean we have attained a stasis. Nor is this something we should be seeking. Within the research ethics field new problems, issues and concerns and new ways of collecting data continue to emerge regularly. This should not be surprising as social, economic and technological change necessitate constant re-evaluation of research conduct. Standard approaches to research ethics such as valid informed consent, inclusion/exclusion criteria, vulnerable subjects, and covert studies need to be reconsidered as developing social contexts and methodological innovation, interdisciplinary research and economic pressures pose new challenges to convention.

In the social sciences and humanities, topic areas such as community participatory action, autoethnography and e-research (Internet and social media, online chatrooms) and embedded anthropologists in military settings demand the re-thinking of ethics review processes. In the physical sciences growing interest areas such as nanotechnology, neuroscience, cognitive sciences, artificial intelligence, robotics (of the labour replacement and/or ‘collaborative’ kinds), and gene modification blur the boundary between the biomedical, psychological and philosophical understandings of what it means to be human. In ‘overlapping’ technological fields the changes to the human-machine interface add a constantly adaptive relational element to research processes. And, not least, the application of surveillance methods (CCTV, RFID, GSR) to the observation of human beings raises social, political and human rights issues.

All of these and many more emergent topics challenge our understanding of ‘the public’ and ‘the private’. All of these require researchers to think clearly about the balance of harm and benefit to their subjects, to themselves and to society. This series proposes to address such new and continuing challenges for both ethics committees and researchers in the field as they emerge. The concerns and interests are global and well recognised by researchers and commissioners alike around the world but with varying commitments at both the ‘procedural’ and the ‘practical’ levels (Guillemin & Gillam, 2004). This series is designed to suggest realistic solutions to these challenges – this ‘practical’ angle is the USP for the series. Each volume will raise and address the key issues in the debates, but also strive to suggest ways forward that maintain the key ethical concerns of respect for human rights and dignity, while sustaining pragmatic guidance for future research developments. A series such as this aims to offer practical help and guidance in actual research engagements as well as meeting the often varied and challenging demands of research ethics review. The approach will not be one of abstract moral philosophy; instead it will seek to help researchers think through the potential harms and benefits of their work in the proposal stage and assist their reflection of the big ethical moments that they face in the field often when there may be no one to advise them in terms of their societal impact and acceptance.

While the research community can be highly imaginative both in the fields of study and methodological innovation, the structures of management and funding, and the pressure to publish to fulfil league table quotas can pressure researchers into errors of judgment that have personal and professional consequences. The series aims to adopt an approach that promotes good practice and sets principles, values and standards and ‘ways of acting’ that serve as models to aid successful research outcomes. There is clear international appeal as commissioners and researchers alike share a vested interest in the global promotion of professional values and standards that lead to public acceptability.

The proposal to establish the series has been a long time in preparation since we were concerned to ensure we addressed key issues in research ethics and research integrity in a timely, contemporary and pragmatic way. We are seeking to draw together existing threads of insight and understanding, lay foundations for the future and assist researchers across the sciences and humanities in ensuring ethical practice. While the early volumes have more of a social science-related brief, they nevertheless cover issues of relevance across the sciences and humanities. The approach will broaden to incorporate other sciences and the humanities with succeeding volumes.

Future topics for volumes in the series will include: Internet-mediated research and using social media; data sharing and the problems of big data; human rights and privacy and surveillance research; research integrity with indigenous peoples; participatory action research; research with vulnerable subjects; ethical issues of research in neurosciences; conflict studies; teaching research ethics; research integrity in crowd-sourced data; ethics of evidence-based policy-making and impact assessment. Indeed we hope to receive suggestions for further topics to be covered from engaged researchers as the series develops.

A Global Reach and the Concept of Universal Research Ethics Codes

My earliest ambitions for the idea of establishing common principles for ethical research on an international scale were somewhat ‘grounded’ even during work on the RESPECT Project. There were many issues that we could not agree on even amongst partners in the Project – let alone when trying to source common elements from each of our ‘home’ countries. This reflects the broader problem of seeking universalism in human rights. The problem with rights is that they frequently stand in opposition to each other. Rights to freedom, life, speech and so on can run counter to each other in different circumstances and all may run counter to a right which has grown increasingly precious as it has been threatened – privacy. Recent terrorist incidents around the world demonstrate quite markedly how rights to privacy and security can run counter to each other (Iphofen, 2016b). To illustrate further, due to growing concern over public safety and security as a consequence of terrorist action and organised crime the European Commission has taken on a mission from the European Parliament to fund research into security and surveillance. More than 200 projects in the field have been funded to the tune of many millions of euros. At the same time the European Parliament has been urged to enhance rights to privacy. Already funded research aimed to protect the general public is being stifled by bewilderment about what is or might be allowed in the interests of the protection of the ‘datasubject’. Recent attempts in the United States to gain access to a terrorist’s iPhone has pitted the rights of Apple against the US Government. If the enhanced privacy imperative takes on the force of law it could become even more difficult to conduct research into the actions of individuals in positions of authority – thereby restricting the political freedoms once thought so vital to democratic accountability.

Some of my optimism for a more global reach for standards in research ethics was rekindled when an expert commentator on Internet research, Charles Ess, addressed the issue in the concluding conference for the RESPECT project in Budapest in 2003. Charles rehearsed some of the arguments for and limitations of setting guidelines for a global research ethics. Evidently this held some urgency due to the growth of online research opportunities. Given his views on the necessities of adopting a pragmatic ethical pluralism in applied research, it was inevitable he would point to the need to address the potential conflicting positions that would have to be reconciled. The ‘Golden Rule of perspective-taking’ requires that you: ‘Never treat a research subject online in a way that you would not be comfortable explaining to that person face-to-face’. This is similar to asking if you were the research subject, participant or respondent, how would you want to be treated? Medford (2006) similarly claims autoethnographers should not write anything about a person they would not show that person. The challenge to that is that a researcher cannot place himself/herself in the place of the subject in part because of the diversity of (rapidly changing) venues (Allen, 1996). But, as Charles Ess argued, taken to the logical extreme, this becomes a relativism that would also mean that whatever we learn from the subjects as different from the observer/scientist may have no relevance to any other subjects and so would have no generalisable applicability.

These guidelines might have to be based on what Walzer (1994) termed ‘thin’ moral arguments: ones that can be interpreted and applied in different ways through the diverse lenses of defining cultural beliefs, practices, traditions, and so on. Moral arguments are ‘thin’ when shorn of their particular histories and the other cultural embodiments which make them integral parts of a cultural entity. These are the parts that make the arguments ‘thick’. Thus many in the West might hold sympathetic feelings for and identify with claims to ‘truth’ and ‘justice’ or ‘freedom’; they form part of the ‘thin’ morality, but the localised and contextualised working of those moral concepts is part of the ‘thick’ realisation of how those operate locally and we might not entirely agree with their application in practice in, say, Eastern Europe or Asia. One might thus ask what could be the ‘universal’ value or gain of promulgating ‘thin’ ethical precepts for research practice? The danger is that they could be regarded as superficial and holding little relevance when applied in a variety of local settings. They might be accorded lip service but not sincerely adhered to in research practice.

The ‘Universal Ethical Code for Scientists’ published by the UK Council for Science and Technology (CST) in 2005 provides an example. The principles stated were for ‘rigour, respect and responsibility’. The CST then sought responses from the breadth of research institutions that might have an interest in its implications. They responded by endorsing the principles contained in the Code – how could they not? Clearly the Code could not claim ‘universality’ since it was developed within a UK governmental advisory body and with UK experts. But an Editorial in The Lancet in January 2006 illustrated the limits on such an endeavour. The Editorial complained of how the Code ‘fell badly short’ of its intentions and was ‘uninspiring’: ‘Instead of clearly defining what science is, why it matters so much to society, and what its goals should be, the code offers up a series of awkwardly worded exhortations. … Rather than a clarion call, the CST’s code provides a list of cautiously phrased dos and don’ts. The CST’s effort to stimulate a discussion among scientists about the principles and ideals of their profession is welcome. But to inspire such a discussion, those principles and ideals should be asserted with force, clarity, and passion. The CST has smothered reason with platitudinous rules, adding to the sense that science is being asphyxiated by over-regulation’ (The Lancet, 2006, p. 86). The Universal Code was ‘implemented’ in 2007 – see: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/universal-ethical-code-for-scientists. As with the projects reported earlier it is impossible to assess the impact of a Code such as this. But there are clearly lessons to be learned.

A most important goal in this ‘Advances’ series is to strive to offer sets of standards, principles, virtues and values that can have international appeal and application. In an increasingly global world in research terms, there is little point in applying too localised a morality, nor one that implies a solely Western hegemony of values. If standards ‘matter’, it seems evident that they should ‘matter’ to and for all. Only then can the growth of interdisciplinary and multinational projects be accomplished effectively and with a shared concern for potential harms and benefits (see Iphofen, 2011, p. 149).

Once more this ‘universalising’ impulse can be illustrated with European Commission (EC) funded projects. The growth of interdisciplinary, multi-institutional research teams seeking international funding sources and research sites raises many questions about the sources and application of values, principles and standards. The EC funds technological developments and entrepreneurial activities that possess research elements – field tests for new products for example. Such work cannot be immune to the ethical expectations imposed upon more scholarly research. Hence the adoption of the ideology of ‘Responsible Research and Innovation’ discussed earlier. Furthermore in recognition of the importance of the internationalisation of many projects and the inclusion of non-EU partners, the principles of the Horizon 2020 funding call for ethical requirements of EU countries to be matched in ‘third country’ partners. At present the assurances given might be seen as little more than lip service to good behaviour; there is no way projects can be adequately monitored at such a distance – geographically and culturally. The only way some more concrete reassurances can be given if those principles, virtues, values and standards can be adopted in all the regions is if a commonality of ethics and integrity in science can be achieved worldwide. Without doubt a global ethics is required together with the establishment of efficient and effective monitoring systems. But given the difficulties of application referred to above and the problems of a ‘thick’ moral argument, the essential element of that global ethic might be the virtues inherent in the individual researcher. We hope to address that possibility and responsibility in a later volume in this series.

Evidently not all agree on either the necessity, the possibility or, even, the desirability of developing and applying a universal code of ethics, even in the field of international scientific research practice. That argument rests on the view that there are too many variations in culture, politics, religion and ideology across the globe that ensuring agreement given such diversity is well nigh impossible. More importantly it may fail to honour or respect such local values and traditions. If we wish ‘others’ to take the possibility of a more universal ethics code seriously, a way has to be found for it not to challenge excessively the ethical concepts that they already hold dear. Or such a code must assume principles that all might see as fundamental without being so superficial as to dilute the values on which it could be based. This raises issues of cultural relativism and, clearly, problems associated with the contested field of ethical relativism. Evidently these are concepts that will have to be returned to throughout the Series.

Organisations such as the OECD, UNESCO and the World Science Forum could offer examples of how more universal principles could be achieved. But all have suffered criticism – usually concerned with their organisational and leadership structures – which illustrates how difficult an ambition this could be. There are several examples, but to select one for illustration, in 2005 the Population Council under its Horizons initiative issued a set of ‘Guidelines and Resources’ for ‘Ethical Approaches to Gathering Information from Children and Adolescents in International Settings’ (Schenk & Williamson, 2005). The authors drew on an extensive network of esteemed individuals and organisations with a breadth of experience in research with children. This was an extremely comprehensive and genuinely international set of advice, guidance and useful resources. An Internet search finds it referenced in two or three published guidelines to varying degrees, but without being employed in a comprehensive manner.

Perhaps the relatively new Global Research Council (GRC) offers a better model of how a ‘buy-in’ of the right nature can be sought. From an initiative of the United States’s National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2012 the GRC established what might best be described as a ‘participatory network’ of research funding bodies and research councils from across the globe. Building on an agreed Statement of Principles the GRC have produced action statements that could establish ‘model’ ways of proceeding with regard to topics such as peer review and confidentiality, open access publishing, research integrity and now women in science and interdisciplinarity. Through an annual meeting and a series of regional gatherings, they encourage discussion to achieve a coordinated or consensus position with regard to key issues in science. No attempt is made to seek formal endorsements from the research governance structures in the 60 countries regularly involved, rather a consistency in approach built upon the outcomes of these meetings. The fact that it is not a subscription-based membership organisation may be part of its success. Its independence from existing national or political structures may be the incentive for participation to bodies that self-fund their involvement and so must see the gains in the networking alone.

The limitations on associations such as the GRC can be seen in the extremely brief statement that it made about research integrity. That will always be a problem when absorbing a broad and diverse community of interests. Indeed some might argue that the same could be true of the ‘five principles’ for research ethics achieved by the Academy. I certainly hope not and that was the intention behind the background paper that explains the background rationale for those principles (see Chapter 10 in this volume). As yet the GRC has had little to say ‘formally’ about research ethics. There is still room to reflect on the role that, say, the GRC and Science Europe and other organisations like them might play in nurturing ethical conduct and improving the nature and forms of regulation.

So while a diversity of experience and local interests is acknowledged, there are models of good practice which can help emergent nations build their policies and processes to suit their own circumstances. Once again, as with all such ventures, there is a difficulty in assessing impact. Much is dependent upon the testimony of convinced participants. What we need to know is if these consensus positions effectively guide the work of scientists across the globe and secure minimal participant harm and maximum societal benefit – and, additionally, that instances of fraudulence, corruption and dishonesty in science decrease as a consequence.

Editorial Advisory Group

To explain how we aim to ensure balance and comprehensive coverage of existing work, we will be seeking persons of eminence and experience to advise the progress of the Series. We also are concerned to maintain a global coverage and will be drawing upon a network of colleagues from around the world. As the inspiration for this series grew out of the work of the UK Academy of Social Sciences Research Ethics Group, who successfully delivered a Series of symposia and a major conference at the British Library aimed at achieving the goals outlined above, they form the founding Editorial Advisory Group and include:

• Dr Ron Iphofen FAcSS (Independent Consultant and Series Editor)

• Prof. John Oates FAcSS (Open University, UK)

• Prof. Robert Dingwall FAcSS (Director, Dingwall Enterprises Ltd/Professor of Sociology, Nottingham Trent University, UK)

• Dr Janet Lewis AcSS (Former Research Director, Joseph Rowntree Foundation)

• Dr Nathan Emmerich (Queens University Belfast)

  They are joined for the first and succeeding volumes by:

• Prof. Mark Israel (Prof. of Law and Criminology, University of Western Australia)

• Assoc. Prof. Martin Tolich (Sociology Dept., University of Otago, New Zealand)

The Editorial Advisory Group will grow with each volume and according to the topics and interests to be represented.

While considering some editorial points, I think it is worth making clear a distinction we aim to sustain throughout the Series between ‘ethics governance’ (which refers to the governance of ethics) and ‘ethical governance’ – which has to do with governance conducted in an ethical manner. The same applies to the terms ‘ethics regulation’ and ‘ethical regulation’. This means that the ‘reviews’ we are referring to are of ‘research ethics’, hence the phrase ‘research ethics review’ which might be conducted by a ‘research ethics committee’ (REC). One would of course hope that such a review would be ‘ethical’ in the sense that it is conducted in an ‘ethical’ manner. In the same way one would always hope that ‘governance’ would be ‘ethical’ and the governance we might be referring to is of the ways in which ‘research ethics’ is accomplished. (i.e. the ways in which research can be helped to be and can be seen to be ‘ethical’.) Thus if you call something an ‘ethical review’ there is an empirical test that could be made of that claim: ‘Was the review conducted in an ethical manner?’ Now that is something entirely different than ‘a review of the ethics of a research proposal’. Thus we speak of ‘research ethics committees’ not ‘research ethical committees’ – nor even, to prejudge the matter: ‘ethical research committees’. (They may be or they may not be; it is an empirical question and perhaps one which ought to be investigated more often than it has been.)

There will initially be an ‘internal’ blind peer-review process of submissions for each volume. First drafts of chapters will be circulated to all volume contributors and the Editorial Group for comment and debate. Subsequently a double blind review process will be instigated with external experts invited to comment.

Subject Areas and Keywords for the Series

Research ethics, research integrity, scientific integrity, responsible research, ethics review, research methodology, research design, responsible innovation, creative research methods, ethics in social media research, evidence-based policy-making, societal impact assessment, scientific misconduct, fraudulence, plagiarism, corruption, social sciences, natural sciences, health science, medical science, genomics, neurosciences, security, privacy.

Ron Iphofen

Series Editor

References

Introduction to Volume 1: Generic Ethics Principles in Social Science Research

Janet Lewis

The Background

An essential first step in pursuing the idea of consensus in research ethics was to seek some commonality across the social sciences. If it could be achieved there, there was a chance of repeating the effort and the gains elsewhere. As a result the papers at the core of this volume, forming Section I, are the product of quite a lengthy gestation period. In 2009 two separate events were organised, involving some of the future participants. In February a small meeting was held under the joint auspices of the UK Academy of Social Sciences (the Academy) and the British Psychological Society (BPS) to formulate a response to the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) consultation document about its then Research Ethics Framework (now the Framework for Research Ethics). In May the Social Research Association (SRA) and the Academy organised a conference entitled Ethics in social science: regulation, review or scrutiny?, which addressed growing concerns about the conduct of ethical review of social science research. The meeting aimed to examine the way in which the current and developing system of reviewing and regulating social science research was working and how it might best develop in the future. (A brief events history of the Academy of Social Science’s involvement in research ethics work is set out in the appendix).

Growing out of these two meetings four Fellows of the Academy came together because of a shared interest in trying to improve the ethical practice of social science research and how it was assessed. At a series of subsequent conferences and meetings they decided to work together, in collaboration with the wider social science community, to promote a pan-disciplinary approach to research ethics. An exploratory seminar on Ethics principles for social science research was organised under the auspices of the Academy, the SRA and the Association of Research Ethics Committees (AREC, now called AfRE – the Association for Research Ethics) in March 2010. Representatives of 13 learned societies and 9 other organisations attended. There was agreement to explore a common set of principles covering the conduct of research in the social sciences, but not to address the issue of research governance. The Academy was identified as the appropriate body to do this.

Initial Work

The four Fellows, Robert Dingwall, Ron Iphofen, Janet Lewis and John Oates, then became a Working Group of the Academy of Social Sciences to take the work forward. As members of the Academy with a special concern for research ethics, the Group’s attentions were diverted to several ‘ethical’ concerns that arose during this period. The first of these during the Summer and Autumn of 2010 was the Academy of Medical Science’s review of regulation and governance in UK health research under Sir Michael Rawlins. The Working Group consulted across the Academy and played a significant part in the drafting of two formal responses and submissions to the Rawlins Review. It seemed a great opportunity to establish a collective, interdisciplinary consensus on ethical regulation in health and social care research – a field with extensive involvement and concern across the social sciences. Without being exactly ‘rebuffed’, the Rawlins Committee took little notice of our contribution, elected not to make any specific mention of the social sciences, and continued the tradition of pursuing a distinctly biomedical line in its recommendations.

The next ‘distraction’ arose out of a need to respond to the Concordat on Research Integrity that emerged from concerns within a number of funding bodies including Universities UK (UUK), Research Councils UK (RCUK), the Higher Education Funding Councils (HEFCE, etc.), and the Wellcome Trust. The overlaps between research ethics and research integrity clearly demanded the Group’s attention. The initial drafts of the proposed Concordat held a particularly narrow vision of research integrity. The proposals were for a form of corporate monitoring, or even protectionism, which could undermine free and independent research enquiry. They also ignored systemic institutional issues in failures of integrity, seeing researchers as the only focus of concern. The Group’s response to the consultation drew on broader concerns within the Academy and, it is fair to say, had some success in helping to amend the Concordat in ways that were more acceptable across the research community.

Other similar ‘distracting’ causes and issues occurred during this period, all of which can be seen as confirmation of the degree of contemporary research concerns and the importance of the Academy’s Project. Throughout 2011 the Group continued to develop its thinking on how best to facilitate discussion and work with a range of learned societies. It was joined in this task, as an Academic Secretary, by Nathan Emmerich who had been involved in the meetings in 2009. It was decided that a series of symposia should be organised to take the debate forward. Funding was sought to be able to do this. Financial support was finally agreed in 2012. This consisted of a combination of grants from the ESRC, the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the British Sociological Association (BSA), to supplement the Academy’s contribution, and moral support and assistance in kind from the Open University and AREC/AfRE.

The Symposia

The series of three symposia was held in the spring of 2013 with the title of Generic ethics principles in social science research. The first Symposium focused on Principles and the following two on Values and Standards. ¹

Quite some time was spent in deciding the order of the Symposia and what we were seeking in terms of principles, values and standards. Indeed some commentators challenged the priority ordering suggesting that ‘values should always come before principles’: and they charged that perhaps we ought not even to be discussing standards since they were matters of professional practice. But what was important for the Group was to offer as wide an appeal as possible amongst learned societies’ colleagues to encourage them to pursue this endeavour. We needed to be assured that there was a concern to achieve some degree of consensus for ethical social science research and how best to promulgate it. What was particularly important was that this should be a ‘bottom-up’ process. We did not wish this to be seen as something that had already been agreed upon within the higher echelons of the profession and then somehow surreptitiously imposed upon practitioners. Indeed the members of the Group had not, historically, held a unanimous view about research ethics and ethics review, and a consensus of approach within the Group only grew out of its deliberations. It was to be tested at ‘grassroots’ level with representatives from the constituent learned societies’ representatives and to provide the basis for further debate and discussion.

The format for each symposium was the same. A main speaker introduced a paper that had been circulated in advance. This was followed by two formal discussants and then participation from the floor. Discussion in groups took place in the afternoon. There was then a brief concluding plenary session.

Attendance at the symposia was deliberately restricted to around 40 participants in order to promote good discussion. Over half were representatives of learned society members of the Academy of Social Sciences. In addition to the speakers, formal discussants, and members of the organising committee, there were representatives from AREC/Afre, ESRC, Health Research Authority (HRA), Social Care Research Ethics Committee (SCREC), UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) and Universities UK (UUK).

A wide range of issues was debated across the three symposia, as will be seen in the first part of this volume. The discussion ranged over a wider terrain than the Group had expected. In particular, it touched on the ethics and practice of ethics review and the Participant Protection Model, as well as the importance of reflexivity in thinking about the relationship between researcher and researched. A draft set of principles was circulated during the symposia and became a backdrop for the discussions. By the end of the three symposia it was concluded that the debate on the issues had only just begun and there was further work for the Group to do.

Following the Symposia

A questionnaire was sent out in the summer of 2013 to all those people who had attended or expressed an interest in the symposia, asking for views about being engaged in the further discussion of specific issues, and whether they would be willing to organise any activities. Their responses helped to shape the continuing work, some of which will appear as later volumes in this series.

The papers from the three symposia and a summary of the discussions were published by the Academy of Social Sciences as a Professional Briefing in October 2013 and the Group’s focus became directed specifically to the development and elaboration of the generic principles.

A Conference

A discussion document Towards Common Principles for Social Science Research Ethics? ² was written and formed a core part of a conference entitled Finding Common Ground held in January 2014. ³ In addition to a presentation about the principles document, Felice Levine, Executive Director of the American Educational Research Association, gave a US perspective on developments in research ethics and governance in the context of the US discussions on revisions to their ‘Common Rule’. The greater part of the day was given over to workshops, to maximise the contribution of the participants. The morning workshops focused on the two earlier presentations and the afternoon was structured around four topics where there were felt to be particularly sensitive ethical issues for researchers to consider:

• researching children and vulnerable adults;

• using social media;

• data sharing;

• researching across cultures.

The thinking behind this was that the generic principles were set at a relatively high level of generality and that it would be helpful to try to develop additional ‘modules’ that would elaborate the principles in specific research contexts.

The conference was well attended and generated a considerable amount of discussion and interest. Once again, therefore, it was recognised that the end of the journey had not been reached. The Working Group was clear that it was important to involve others as much as possible in this journey, with learned societies and similar groups being important partners in this. Around this time the status of the Group was formalised as the Research Ethics Group of the Academy of Social Sciences with Janet Lewis as the Research Ethics Convenor and Nathan Emmerich as Research Ethics Co-ordinator.

The Group’s Priorities after the Conference

The Group’s priorities became:

• The revision of the Discussion Paper in the light of the feedback from the conference;

• Exploring the development of a common code/guidelines with those societies that were interested;

• Finding ways to take forward the modular approach;

• Promoting discussion of virtue ethics;

• Publicising the work as widely as possible.

A section of the Academy’s website was developed to focus on research ethics and provide a means of publicising the work. The revised Discussion Paper Towards Common Principles for Social Science Research Ethics was published in summer 2014 and circulated to those on the mailing list and to learned society members and individual Fellows of the Academy.

Building on the information collected in 2013, all the other objectives were pursued in conjunction with a learned society or similar group.

• The SRA organised a workshop with interested learned societies to discuss the statement of the Principles in more detail and to consider ways of developing a shared set of Guidelines in November 2014. One outcome of this was that the wording of the five principles was slightly modified, and they became the official version. These principles were discussed by the Academy’s Council in March 2015 and formally adopted as guiding ethics principles for social science research. ⁴

• An event to discuss Virtue Ethics was organised with the BSA in May 2015 ⁵ – and this will be picked up in a later volume in this series.

• Also in May 2015 there was a discussion about the Principles and how they might apply to cross-cultural research at an event organised by BAICE.

• In July 2015 there was a preliminary discussion with the ESRC on the issue of Big Data. It was subsequently concluded that this was such a huge issue that the Working Group was not the appropriate body to take it forward.

• In March 2016 a conference on Social media and social science research ethics was organised jointly by the Academy and NSMNSS (New Social Media, New Social Science) ⁶ – and the papers and discussions will contribute to a later volume in this Series.

• In addition to these collaborative activities, a series of ‘Roadshows’ at Universities around the United Kingdom was begun. These provided an opportunity for the Principles to be discussed and for their application to be tested in relation to ethical issues raised by research projects being carried out at that University. ⁷

Through John Oates’ membership of the relevant advisory group, the generic principles developed by the Research Ethics Group contributed to the ESRC’s revision of their influential Framework for Research Ethics (FRE) that was published in January 2016. ⁸ Similarly, Ron Iphofen and John Oates have drawn on the principles for their work linked to the evaluation of scientific research ethics for the European Commission and the European Research Council.

All these threads are being brought together and elaborated in the volumes published in this book series. The hope is that they will provide a firm foundation for further discussion and development of a strong cross-disciplinary approach to research ethics. At the very least we may claim that we have reached a point where foundations have been laid to claim a degree of ‘understanding’ across the learned societies that form the Academy.

Section I: Seeking Consensus: Research Ethics and the Social Sciences

This volume is divided into two themed sections. The first part should be read as the cumulative outcome of the series of symposia – each meeting event trying to build on the previous one(s), building towards the five principles and the background paper. While each of the papers published here were originally presented during the Symposia series, they have all been updated and amended as a consequence of continuing dialogue.

David Carpenter’s piece opened the first of the symposia series on the theme of ‘principles’. His concern was to confront directly what it means to seek principles as a foundation for ethically conducted research, to explore the idea which has come to be seen (and challenged) as ‘principlism’ and to suggest alternative ways of proceeding. David sees principles as having something in common with human rights, both as intrinsic and as institutionally derived, and asks whether the quest for principles in social science is, in itself, wise. His case is based on the view that while the adoption and promotion of principles might assist ethical practice, a ‘principlist’ theoretical perspective might not. Instead he makes a powerful case for the virtues of the researcher as a source of principles. The truly ethical researcher is the virtuous one.

Martyn Hammersley’s response to David’s piece stridently challenges the notion of ‘social acceptability’ as an alternative/additional principle to the conventional Beauchamp and Childress ones. In particular he expresses concern with the validity of public participation in all aspects of the research process as a means of attaining such acceptability. More seriously he questions whether the goals of a virtuous researcher would necessarily be compatible with social responsibility. Martyn’s critical reflection on tacitly accepted terms associated with ethical practice (such as social acceptability, the common good and even Rousseau’s notion of the general will) points up their conceptual vagueness and their inherent contradictions for each other – resulting in practical difficulties for applying them – both by researchers and by research reviewers. In keeping with a position he has sustained for quite some time, he concludes with concerns for how principles would be too rigorously applied by regulatory ethics committees, leaving little room for the independent thinking and flexibility of action required for the contribution to knowledge that is at the heart of academic research.

Sharon Macdonald brings an anthropologist’s perspective on the issues raised by David. In some respects, for Sharon, the principlist position implies a ‘top down’ view of ethical reflexivity while anthropologists more frequently adopt a ‘bottom-up’ approach. As a consequence this is a discipline that suffers more than most from an overly procedural regulatory system of review and it should come as no surprise that she cautions against the dangers of ethnocentricity. In advocating resistance to a results-led, impact agenda, Sharon proposes a pluralism of perspective and the building-in of reflexivity as principles that should be considered for an ethical social science.

Matt Sleat opened the second symposium on ‘values’ by exploring the issues of whose interest and rights are at stake when social scientists conduct their research. More importantly he is specific in cautioning against the import of values and principles from the biomedical sciences. In this paper he warns of the dangers of applying a ‘participant protection model’ (PPM) to social science which privileges the interests of research participants over all other duties and concerns. He points out that the asymmetry of power between researcher and researched is not so stark in the social sciences as it is in biomedical science. Indeed, depending upon the status and social placing of those being researched, it might be the researcher who remains most at risk of harm.

In her response to Matt’s paper, Rosemary Hunter reminds us of the broader set of relationships in which the researcher is implicated and their corresponding and reciprocal duties. She sees some value in regulatory oversight that is not obstructive and refines Matt’s view of the power asymmetry in the researcher’s relationship with elite research participants. Her detailed assessment of the series of values that could stand as elements in any researcher’s ethics framework is well worth considering. Kenneth M. Boyd’s response to Matt underlines why principles that are seen to be both useful and appropriate to ethical decision-making in medicine and biomedical research might have some merits for social science but do not easily transfer. But his central point is to guard against the consequences of the social researcher moving from ‘thought’ (contributing to knowledge) to ‘action’ – which could have political consequences and create a fundamental change in disposition towards the researcher’s role in society.

In the second symposium Will C. van den Hoonaard essentially drew together many of the elements of the preceding discussion to critique the role and practices of ethics review committees, a perspective for which he has already attained something of an international reputation. In this paper he condemns the ‘colonisation’ of social sciences by inappropriate codes of ethics and the actions of inegalitarian ethics committees and their restrictive administrative structures. Additionally Will sets the ground for moving towards some degree of consensus in ethical practices for the social sciences by reasserting the conceptual and critical challenges to be confronted when contributing to a constructive sociopolitical critique, understanding collective patterns in society and remembering the interdependence of people.

The picture Will paints about the unethical nature of Research Ethics Boards’ behaviour is not necessarily reflected everywhere and there are plenty of examples of good practice across the United Kingdom and in Europe. But there have clearly been some very unhappy experiences for researchers in the United States and Canada which lies at the root of his unease. Certainly his cautions about the imbalance of ethical obligations between researchers and their reviewing committees are tellingly accurate. While research proposals are regularly ‘tested’ by asking the questions: Who is doing it? Why are they doing it? And how are they doing it? We rarely do the same for the members of the research ethics committee. An assessment of their constituency, their motives and their practices are just as valid a set of criteria to apply to the ethical management of research.

James Parry of the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) appropriately led the discussion in the third symposium on ‘standards’. In his paper here he first addresses the range of motives we might have for seeking a consensus on standards and then rehearses alternative strategies for applying such standards within the social science professions. James’ experience of engaging similar activities for UKRIO shows in his outlining of possible outcomes for such actions. His methodical option appraisal could prove very useful for any learned society or professional association striving to establish guidance on standards.

Susan V. Zimmerman, in reflecting on James Parry’s paper, begins by clarifying concepts, definitions and the aims of the symposia series. And she follows this up with an account of how the Canadian research agencies addressed these key issues in the Second Edition of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS 2). The particular achievement of the Canadian experience is to have something that applies across the natural and social sciences as well as covering engineering. The idea that there are underlying principles common to all disciplines conducting research with humans is in sympathy with the aims both of this volume and the Series that it opens. The adjustments made for TCPS 2 in response to concerns from the social science and humanities professions were particularly commendable.

Chapter 10 provides a summary of the Working Group’s thinking at the end of the series of symposia in 2013, and drew on the papers presented and subsequent discussion. This summary was updated following the conference in January 2014 at the British Library. Following the publication, in the summer of 2014, of the Discussion Paper mentioned earlier, and subsequent discussion with interested learned societies, a statement identifying five Generic ethics principles for social science research was agreed. These principles were adopted by the Academy’s Council in March 2015. That statement is reproduced at the end of this paper. A set of ‘model clauses’ that could form the foundation for any set of guidelines on research integrity and ethics is also suggested.

The final paper in this section comes from Nathan Emmerich who acted as ‘Academic Secretary’ to the Working Group and performed a vital liaison, organisational and recording role. It is thus appropriate that he was able to apply his own scholarly vision, this time at an ‘anthropological distance’, to the entire endeavour. This does not stand merely as an account of events, Nathan had already done that for the report of the symposia activities on the Academy website. Rather Nathan revisits the range of topics and concerns that routinely emerge during research ethics review and the obstructions that anticipatory regulation can produce. More importantly, as a philosopher, he correctly identifies some of the tensions that beset projects such as this when attempts are made both to identify the moral underpinnings of the disciplines that make up the social sciences while striving to produce something of practical value to research professionals.

Section II: The International Dimension: Interdisciplinary Ethics and Integrity

The second part of the volume begins to broaden the debate to include an international dimension and to start to move us beyond the ‘narrower’ concerns of research ethics within and across the social sciences. First there are papers on past and current projects covering social science research ethics and then a concluding paper reviewing how research integrity has been addressed internationally and across all research disciplines.

Ron Iphofen opens this section with his summary of the background to the Fredericton Conference which ultimately produced the New Brunswick Declaration. A version of this piece was originally written for his colleagues in the UK Social Research Association, so that the Declaration could stand as a touchstone for emerging novel approaches to reflexive and relational research and creative methods. This is followed in Chapter 13 by Meta Gorup’s interview with Ursula Huws, the PI for the RESPECT Project and whose idea it was in the first place. Meta offers an exhaustive and accurate outline of the context in which the Project emerged, as well as the key insight of, once more, how important it is that individuals take on the ‘mission’ which can all too easily get lost in the pressure to secure funds and deliver the commissioned outcomes. More importantly the problems confronted by RESPECT have been experienced by other similar endeavours and Meta’s paper can help anticipate such problems for anyone attempting both meta-analyses and international and professional consensus projects in the future.

The following two papers are also attempts at sustaining the ethical awareness ‘brief’. Gabi Lombardo’s piece summarises the Science Europe Workshop on the research ethics situation for the social sciences which mirrors the concerns expressed in the Introduction to the Series that opens this volume. The workshop addressed the specific and differing approaches in the social sciences that require more understanding and flexibility in research ethics review processes. Without adding anything novel to the discussion of these concerns, the conclusions to the workshop do resonate with many of the contributors to this volume about how best to make progress. They agreed that the fundamental work developed in ethics in social sciences research must be included in any future set of guidelines.

Awareness about the lack of social science competencies in existing ethical committees must be raised and the setting up of ethics boards with a broader set of disciplinary skills at the institutional level promoted. Most importantly they seek to stimulate a dialogue with funders and stakeholders on research ethics requirements in order to better manage expectations, contribute to developing a consensus with European institutions on ethical procedures in research funding, and encourage further discussion in ongoing and future activities such as for the review of the UNESCO recommendation on the status of scientific researchers.

In similar vein the aims, intentions and current state of play of the European Commission-funded SATORI Project are reported by key members of their Consortium in Chapter 15. Once again the aims of SATORI mirror the appeal we have been making throughout this volume. They recognise and are addressing the need for improvement and coherence in the nature of ‘ethical assessment’ of research and innovation in Europe and beyond – it is part of what helps research activity to be seen as ‘responsible’. Drawing from a range of disciplines, professions and countries they report on their comparative analysis of what is held in common in terms of ethical principles and underlying values and where there exist key differences. This being an essential first step in seeking common elements. The operation of formal assessment bodies and policy-making groups at an international level is also considered. Based on a comparative analysis of procedures and perspectives in different countries the possibility for establishing the foundations for a global set of ethical principles for research and innovation may lie in work such as this.

Mihalis Kritikos, in the concluding paper to this section, draws some cross-cutting issues together when he delivers a thorough summary of the actions that have been taking place internationally to ensure that research integrity is recognised and practised across the sciences. Mihalis is very well placed having served within the European Commission and for external agencies to offer a clear insight into these developments. His account demonstrates the breadth and depth of the concern about responsible scientific practice in a variety of relevant agencies and policy makers. Most importantly it appears that some definitive practical mechanisms are being put into place to help ensure that scientific malpractice will be dealt with effectively. Unlike many of the ethical practice and ethics review issues discussed throughout this volume, research integrity should be less open to subjective assessment and individual judgment calls; we should be able to ‘know it when we see it’ and the actions Mihalis reports on will hopefully assist in accomplishing that. Regulation remains variable internationally and, while recognising cultural and political differences, that diversity could create unequal practices that could prove problematic for multinational and multidisciplinary research teams. However, as Mihalis comments, that returns the onus for integrity back to the collaborating partners in any research enterprise – which is perhaps where, ultimately, it should lie. This is not merely self-regulation; the principles of research integrity have been made abundantly clear by this range of agencies and it is up to collaborating partners to self-monitor, to report abuses and to protect genuine whistleblowers.

The last word is left to Ron Iphofen who has been committed both to the Academy of Social Science’s project to develop Generic Ethics Principles and to getting this series off the ground. While we might not all agree with all of his conclusions and recommendations the hope of the Academy’s Research Ethics Group and members of the editorial advisory board is that the work that has been done will help to revitalise and sustain an interest in good practice in research which will help protect society, research participants and the quality of the science that is produced.

APPENDIX: BRIEF EVENTS HISTORY OF THE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE’S INVOLVEMENT IN RESEARCH ETHICS WORK

There have been a number of events leading up to the series of symposia and the conference at the British Library. From the Academy of Social Science’s point of view they are:

26 February 2009: AcSS and BPS joint meeting to discuss the Academy’s response to the ESRC’s consultation on the REF. (The first meeting at which the idea of some common principles was raised.)

11 May 2009: Academy/SRA conference Ethics in social science: regulation, review or scrutiny (at which Dingwall, Iphofen and Oates all spoke).

(There followed an informal discussion between Iphofen and Lewis at the AREC conference at the end of 2009 about what we were doing to follow up on the two above events. We decided a meeting to discuss ideas should be organised and we were joined by the then chair, David Anderson-Ford, to get AREC involved.)

22 March 2010: Joint AcSS/SRA/AREC exploratory symposium on Ethics principles in social science research. (One of the recommendations of this meeting was that the Academy should take the work forward in relation to the professional and scholarly conduct of research, but not address research governance issues.)

Summer and autumn 2010: Two written submissions to the Rawlins Review of the Academy of Medical Sciences were made from the Academy of Social Sciences – framed by the ethics working group.

January 2011: First meeting of the Academy working group. We agreed to develop a proposal for the ESRC’s seminar series. Application for a series on ‘Developing a generic ethics foundation for social science research’ submitted on 31 October 2011.

(Funding for seminar series proposal unsuccessful – March 2012.)

April 2012: Academy written submission to the consultation on the UUK Concordat (developed by the working group with some learned societies’ input).

Summer 2012: Seminar series proposal revised and submitted to the ESRC as a one-off project in September. In October had confirmation that the “ESRC is supportive of the principle of holding a series of events to discuss current issues in research ethics in relation to the social sciences and to tying this in with the recent concordat to support research Integrity”.

Spring 2013: Three symposia held on Generic Principles in social science research, March 5 on Principles; April 15 on Values; and May 23 on Standards.

January 2014: British Library conference to consider the discussion documents produced by the working group, a statement on principles and how to take the work forward.

Janet Lewis

Notes on Contributors

Kenneth M. Boyd is Professor Emeritus of Medical Ethics and Senior Honorary Professorial Fellow in the University of Edinburgh. After serving as a Chaplain to the University he became Lecturer and subsequently Professor of Medical Ethics in the University’s College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine where he continues to teach in an honorary capacity. He is a Fellow and College Cleric of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He is an honorary Vice-President of the Institute of Medical Ethics and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics. He is Chair of the Boyd Group on the use of animals in science and has served on a variety of national and local ethics committees. He is author of a number of books and papers including: Scottish Church Attitudes to Sex, Marriage and the Family 1850–1914 (1980); ‘Euthanasia: Back to the future’ in Keown J, Examining Euthanasia (1995); ‘Disease, illness, sickness, health, healing and wholeness: Exploring some elusive concepts’ Medical Humanities (2000); ‘Medical ethics: Principles, persons and perspectives: From controversy to conversation’ Journal of Medical Ethics (2005); ‘The development of bioethics and medical ethics in the United Kingdom’ in Baker R, McCullough L, The Cambridge World History of Medical Ethics (2009); ‘Medical research and metaphysical imagination’ Coleridge Bulletin (2009), and most recently, ‘The impossibility of informed consent?’ Journal of Medical Ethics (2015) and ‘Hope, despair and other strategies of patients’ Handbook of the Philosophy of Medicine (2015).

Philip Brey is Full Professor of philosophy of technology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and scientific director of the 3TU.Centre for Ethics and Technology (www.ethicsandtechnology.eu), a research centre that spans three universities in the Netherlands and includes 60 researchers. He has published extensively in the areas of ethics of technology, philosophy and ethics of information technology, and responsible research and innovation. He is president of the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology, a former president of the Society for Philosophy and Technology, and a member of the editorial board of 10 leading journals in his field. He currently coordinates the EU-funded project SATORI (budget 4.7 M€; satoriproject.eu) on European standards for ethical assessment of research and innovation, and is partner in the EU-funded project Responsible Industry, which investigates models of responsible innovation for industry.

David Carpenter works at the University of Portsmouth where he lectures in moral and political philosophy and researches in the broad field of research ethics. He is a long-standing Chair of an NHS Ethics Committee and regularly contributes to the work of the Health Research Authority in training and research projects. He was Vice Chair of the former Association for Research Ethics, which is now part of the Association for Research Managers and Administrators; he continues to provide training to university research ethics committees, under its auspices. He is a member of the British Psychological Society Ethics Committee. His current research interests center on the understanding of the philosophical foundations of research ethics from the perspectives of researchers, research participants and ethics committees; in this regard, he has a particular interest in the application of virtue ethics. He is currently engaged as an ethics adviser to a DFID-funded project in South Asia, exploring links between women’s economic empowerment and violence; the focus of his work is on the application of virtue ethics in this large-scale ethnographic project.

Robert Dingwall is Consulting Sociologist in private practice and part-time Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University. He has wide international experience in teaching and research, particularly in the interdisciplinary study of law, medicine, science and technology. He has written on research ethics throughout his career, particularly in relation to the practice of qualitative research and on the history of ethical regulation. This experience is reflected in contributions to the drafting of the New Brunswick Declaration on research governance. In the past he has chaired an ethical review panel on primate breeding and experimentation and been a member of committees advising an international pharmaceutical company and the UK government on ethical aspects of planning for influenza pandemics. He is a member of the Executive Council of the Academy of Social Sciences and served on the Academy’s working group developing a statement on social science research ethics principles.

Nathan Emmerich is Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast. His research falls under the broad rubric of Bioethics and particularly professional medical ethics, broadly understood. Whilst his background is in philosophy and ‘applied ethics’ his interests are interdisciplinary. He is less interested in applied ethics and normative solutions to the dilemmas of medicine and medical practice than with ‘meta-bioethical’ questions of ethics as an aspect of professional practice and our broader culture and society. To this end he is mostly interested in using social theory to examine how morality and ethics are produced, reproduced and ‘done’ in various domains of medicine and healthcare including clinical practice, medical education, governance, management and academia. He is therefore interested in reflexively situating academic bioethics as an aspect of social, cultural and political engagement with the moral and ethical questions of medicine, healthcare and the biosciences.

Meta Gorup is PhD Candidate at CHEGG – Centre for Higher Education Governance Ghent, Ghent University, Belgium. She holds a degree equivalent to a Master’s in Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and an MSc degree in Culture, Organization, and Management from the VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her ethnographic research has focussed on universities, covering topics such as organisational culture, power relations, resistance to managerialism, and, most recently, academic middle managers and their identities. She has cultivated an interest in research ethics for several years, particularly in relation to the ethical issues in and ethical review of ethnographic research, and social science research ethics guidelines. She is co-convenor of the Applied Anthropology Network within the European Association of Social Anthropologists.

Martyn Hammersley is Emeritus Professor of Educational and Social Research at The Open University, UK. He has carried out research in the sociology of education and studied the role of the media in reporting research findings. However, much of his work has been concerned with the methodological issues surrounding social enquiry. He has written several books, including: (with Paul Atkinson) Ethnography: Principles in Practice (Third edition, Routledge, 2007); Reading Ethnographic Research (Second edition, Longman, 1997); What’s Wrong with Ethnography? (Routledge, 1992); The Politics of Social Research (Sage, 1995); Taking Sides in Social Research (Routledge, 1999); Educational Research, Policymaking and Practice (Paul Chapman, 2002); Questioning Qualitative Inquiry (Sage, 2008); Methodology, Who Needs It? (Sage, 2011); What is Qualitative Research? (Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2012); (with Anna Traianou) Ethics in Qualitative Research (Sage, 2012); and The Limits of Social Science (Sage, 2014).

Rosemary Hunter is Professor of Law and Socio-Legal Studies at Queen Mary University of London, and a member of Queen Mary’s Ethics of Research Committee. She holds BA (Hons) in History and LLB (Hons) degrees from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a JSM and JSD from Stanford University, USA. Prior to moving to the United Kingdom in 2006 she was Director of the Socio-Legal Research Centre (2000–2002) and subsequently Dean of the Faculty of Law (2003–2004) at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. She is a former Chair of the Working Group on Gender and Law of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Sociology of Law, and current Chair (since 2011) of the UK Socio-Legal Studies Association. Her research combines feminist legal theory and socio-legal studies in the areas of family law and procedure, domestic violence, dispute resolution, access to justice and judicial decision-making.

Ron Iphofen is Independent Consultant for research agencies in the United Kingdom and Ireland and Europe. In 2008 he retired from his post as Director of Postgraduate Studies in Healthcare Sciences, Bangor University. Currently he advises the European Commission (EC), the European Research Council and the UK Research Integrity Office. He is Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, the Royal Society of Medicine and the Higher Education Academy. He was scientific consultant on the EC RESPECT project – establishing pan-European standards in the social sciences. He recently chaired the Ethics and Societal Impact Advisory Board for a European Demonstration Project (SECUR-ED €42M) on mass passenger transport security. His current work involves the scientific and ethical review of projects funded under the EC Horizon 2020 scheme. Ron was founding Editor of the Journal Quality in Ageing and Older Adults and among other books published Ethical Decision Making in Social Research: A Practical Guide (2009, 2011) with Palgrave Macmillan.

Philip Jansen is Research Associate at the Philosophy Department of the University of Twente, where his primary work is on the EU-funded SATORI project on ethical impact assessment of research and innovation. In addition, he has written extensively about the ethics of surveillance by domestic unmanned aerial vehicles and is a member of the Organizing Committee of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics.

Mihalis Kritikos is Policy Analyst at the European Parliament working as a legal/ethics advisor on Science and Technology issues (STOA/EPRS) and a Fellow of the Law Science Technology & Society Programme of the University of Brussels (VUB-LSTS). Mihalis is a legal expert in the fields of EU decision-making, legal backcasting, food/environmental law, the responsible governance of science and innovation and the regulatory control of new and emerging risks. He has worked as a Research Programme Manager for the Ethics Review Service of the European Commission, as a Senior Associate in the EU Regulatory and Environment Affairs Department of White and Case (Brussels office) and as a Lecturer at several UK Universities and a Lecturer/Project Leader at the European Institute of Public Administration (EIPA). He also taught EU Law and Institutions for several years at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He holds a Bachelor in Law (Athens Law School), Master degrees in European and International Environmental Law and Environmental Management (University of Athens and EAEME, respectively) and a PhD in European Biotechnology Law (London School of Economics-LSE). In 2008 he won the UACES Prize for the Best Thesis in European Studies in Europe. Mihalis Kritkos is now based at Scientific Foresight (STOA), European Parliament Research Service (EPRS), European Parliament - Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Law, Science, Technology & Society Research Group.

Janet Lewis has PhD in social administration from the University of London but her career has centred on social research. This has included carrying out research projects at the Centre for Studies in Social Policy (later PSI) and managing projects and staff at the Manpower Services Commission and the National Children’s Bureau. She retired from the post of Research Director at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2002. Since then she has been involved in a range of charitable and voluntary activities, many linked to social research. She was the founding chair of the Social Research Association and is now one of its patrons. She is currently the Secretary to the SRA-MRS group on research commissioning. She has a long-standing interest in encouraging good professional practice within social research and this has encompassed how best to help people research ethically. She was involved in a number of meetings and conferences organised by the Academy of Social Sciences in 2009 and 2010 on aspects of research ethics. These led to the creation of the Academy’s Working Group on Research Ethics in 2011. She has chaired this Group, which has become the Academy’s Research Ethics Committee, since that date.

Gabi Lombardo is Director of the European Alliance for SSH (www.eassh.eu), a disciplinary organisation focused on science policy. She also works as a consultant on global HE, funding and management. Previously, Gabi was a senior member of the Science Europe team, and she spent two years at the European Research Council (ERC) coordinating scientific evaluations. Gabi spent 10 years at the London School of Economics (LSE) where she studied for her PhD and worked in both academic and management positions, with a particularly emphasis in articulating and developing the LSE’s first International Strategy, alongside LSE Director, Lord Anthony Giddens.

Sharon Macdonald is Alexander von Humboldt Professor of Social Anthropology in the Institute for European Ethnology, and Director of the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMaH) at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She is also Anniversary Professor of Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Sociology, University of York. Her anthropological fieldwork has taken her into such diverse locations as schools, homes and cow-sheds in the Scottish Hebrides, offices and galleries in museums in London and Berlin, and the former marching grounds of the Nazi party in Nuremberg.

John Oates is Senior Lecturer at the Open University and the lead for the British Psychological Society Code of Human Research Ethics. As member of the BPS Research Board, Ethics Committee and Research Ethics Reference Group, he established the Society’s Media Ethics Advisory Group. He represented the BPS in English and Scottish government reviews of legislation safeguarding children in productions and advised of common guidance on under-eighteens in broadcasting. He established the Open University Research Ethics Committee, chairing it for seven years, and is a Council Trustee of the Association for Research Ethics. With colleagues from the Academy of Social Sciences Research Ethics Group, John organised a series of symposia and an international conference with UK learned societies towards a set of universal ethics principles now adopted by the Academy. He is a member of the Economic and Social Research Council ethics advisory group which led the production of the Framework for Research Ethics and the new Framework launched in January 2016. He is an advisor to the United Kingdom Research Integrity Office, and ethics reviewer and rapporteur for the European Research Council.

James Parry is the Chief Executive of the UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) (see www.ukrio.org), an independent advisory body which supports good practice in academic, scientific, and medical research. Joining UKRIO in 2006, he took up his current role in 2008, overseeing UKRIO’s transition to a registered charity supported by more than 60 universities. He leads UKRIO’s advisory service, responding to queries and concerns about research practice from researchers and the public. He helped develop UKRIO’s Code of Practice for Research and other publications, used by many leading research organizations, and he works with UKRIO’s subscribers to provide them with tailored support on research practice. He regularly speaks on how to sustain and enhance integrity and high ethical standards in research; recent audiences have included the Royal Society and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Prior to joining UKRIO, James worked as an archaeologist and a university administrator.

Rowena Rodrigues is Senior Research Analyst at Trilateral Research Ltd., UK. Her areas of expertise and research interests include: privacy and data protection (law, policy and practice), ethics and governance of new and emerging technologies, responsible research & innovation, privacy certification, security and surveillance, comparative legal analysis, and regulation of new technologies. She has published book chapters in publications by Springer, Routledge, Policy Press, and articles in journals such as the Computer Law & Security Review, European Journal of Social Science Research, International Data Privacy Law and The Journal of Contemporary European Research. At Trilateral, she contributes in various capacities to EU research projects such as SATORI (Stakeholders Acting Together on the ethical impact assessment of Research and Innovation) (deputy project coordination) PULSE (Platform for European Medical Support during major emergencies), and provides consultancy to the private sector. Rowena has a PhD in law from the University of Edinburgh.

Clare Shelley-Egan is Senior Researcher at the Research Group on Responsible Innovation at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. She joined the research group in August 2015 and is currently work package leader on a Norwegian-Czech project on Naturalness in Human Enhancement (HCENAT). In her previous role as Research Analyst at Trilateral Research Ltd., she functioned as deputy coordinator of the European Commission-funded SATORI (Stakeholders Acting Together on the ethical impact assessment of Research and Innovation) project. Shelley-Egan worked in the area of the responsible development of nanotechnologies between 2006 and 2013 at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. Her PhD research centred on understanding the ‘ethics in practice’ of researchers and industrialists in response to the pressure for the responsible development of nanotechnology. She carried out postdoctoral research on the governance of the responsible development of nanotechnology, specifically with regard to the notion of ‘responsibilisation’ and the distribution of regulatory responsibilities for unknown risks.

Matt Sleat is as Senior Lecturer in political theory at the University of Sheffield. His recent research has focused on political realism, the ethics of cyberwarfare and the responsibility to protect. His research has been published in journals such as Political Theory, Social Philosophy & Policy, Review of Politics, International Politics and Political Studies. He is the author of Liberal Realism: A Realist Theory of Liberal Politics – published by Manchester University Press in 2013 – and the co-editor of the European Journal of Political Theory. He has held visiting research fellowships at the University of Oxford, Queen Mary University of London, and the Australian National University.

Will C. van den Hoonaard is Emeritus Professor at the University of New Brunswick (Canada), has authored or edited a dozen books on a wide range of topics: a 700-year history of women in cartography, the Bahá’í Community of Canada, ethnicity, marine resource management in Iceland, and a textbook on sensitising concepts. The National Geographic featured his research, and his work in Iceland was plotted in an Icelandic novel. He also recently authored a children’s book on the childhood of a Persian prophet. He devotes much attention to exploring ethics in research. His University of Toronto trilogy (The Ethics Rupture, 2016; The Seduction of Ethics, 2011; Walking the Tightrope, 2002) constitute a critical analysis of research ethics regimes. With his wife Deborah, he authored The Essentials of Thinking Ethically in Qualitative Research (2013). He is founding Member of Canada’s Panel on Research Ethics. The Health Improvement Institute honoured him with an Award for Lifetime Achievement for Excellence in Human Research Protection. He holds the UNB President’s Medal, a Merit Award, and the United Nations Association of Canada Global Citizen Award. Born in the Netherlands, he lived as a child in a cave in France, worked as receptionist in the European Patent Bureau, and, not finishing high school, migrated to Canada, where he worked in a goldmine in Canada’s Northwest Territories. He obtained a PhD (Sociology) at the University of Manchester. He was also Alternate Representative of the Baha’i International Community to the United Nations, New York City.

Susan V. Zimmerman is Executive Director of the Secretariat on Responsible Conduct of Research, a joint body created by Canada’s three federal research agencies: the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The Secretariat develops policy guidance on the ethics of human research and on the responsible conduct of research, and promotes compliance with this guidance throughout the academic research community in Canada. Ms Zimmerman has an A.B. degree from Bryn Mawr College, a B.C.L. and LL.B. from the Faculty of Law of McGill University and LL.M. from the University of Toronto. She has served as a member of research ethics boards, and has been a university lecturer in health law and ethics at Carleton University. Since 2013, she has been a member of the planning committee for the World Conference on Research Integrity.