Ethics, Integrity and Co-production in Mental Health Research

Abstract

Science is too important to be left solely to scientists, and so the public need to be involved in the design, funding, delivery and implementation of health research, and in discussions about the ethics of research. Since the 1960s, the United Kingdom and many other countries have included scientists from outside health care in various roles in health care research, as well as nonscientists, ordinary citizens, patients and carers. In the last 20 years, these roles have increased in number and range, but significant challenges remain in ensuring that research is always conducted in an ethical fashion. Errors arise when it is assumed that research is ethical because it has passed a single test rather than being subject to constant vigilance; when academic training on its own is regarded as sufficient to guarantee ethical conduct; when pontification about sophisticated dilemmas ignores fundamental matters of equity and helpfulness and when there is an absence of curiosity about the value positions of others (Boaz et al., 2016). We argue in this chapter that in every setting, citizens have the potential to contribute to ethical debates, whether they assist in establishing priorities for research funding, serve as research funding co-applicants, take the lay member places on Research Ethics Committees and Steering Committees, collect and analyze data or co-author academic papers.

Citation

Bates, P. and Willis, A. (2023), "Ethics, Integrity and Co-production in Mental Health Research", O'Sullivan, R. (Ed.) Ethics and Integrity in Research with Older People and Service Users (Advances in Research Ethics and Integrity, Vol. 9), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 129-143. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2398-601820230000009007