Jay Marlowe and Martin Tolich have had an article published (in press) in Research Ethics examining the first year of the not for profit New Zealand Ethics Committee (http://www.nzethics.com/.) They claim NZEC is unique: it reviews applications focusing solely on an application’s research ethics and not as traditionally practiced on research governance. Whilst university and health based researchers in New Zealand are compelled to submit their research for review by ethics committees, local/central government, NGOs and community based researchers are exempt from this process; they usually do not have access to this level of support or review. Though many social scientists have found research governance a frustration in ethics reviews, this article asks if an ethics review committee can function outside an institutional frame focusing solely on research ethics. Does NZEC represent a novel paradigm moving ethics review beyond a risk management exercise of gate keeping to that of bridge building between parties? Their article reports on NZEC’s first year of operation (2013) by interviewing (via a third party) the 14 applicants who voluntarily sought ethics review. They sought to ascertain why these applicants gained ethical review when not mandated to do so and if they experienced this review process as a new paradigm. In 2014 NZEC received 22 applications and as of April 30, 2015 they have received 19 expecting to review 50 applications in 2015. Members of the NZEC invite researchers to research their ethics review processes.
Marlowe, J. & Tolich, M. (in press). Shifting from Research Governance to Research Ethics: A Novel Paradigm for Ethical Review in Community Based Research, Research Ethics
Associate Professor Martin Tolich, Sociology, University of Otago has three recent books. These are
Joan Sieber and Martin Tolich (2013). Planning Ethically Responsible Research Sage, Thousand Oaks.
Martin Tolich and Barry Smith (2015). The Politicisation of Ethics review in New Zealand, Dunmore Press, Auckland
Martin Tolich editor (in press 2015). Qualitative Ethics in Practice, Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, CA.
This blog may be cited as:
Tolich, M (2015, 11 July) An Open Invitation to Research an Ethics Committee. AHRECS Blog. Retrieved from https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/an-open-invitation-to-research-an-ethics-committee
1 thought on “An Open Invitation to Research an Ethics Committee”
Sounds interesting; but, preliminarily, is independent ‘pure’ research ethics review (good) versus governance-based, mandated, risk management-influenced ‘impure’ research ethics review (bad) perhaps a ‘false dualism’ or at least simplistic? Are not many required ethics reviews genuinely focused on legitimate ethical principles and practice, sometimes even resulting in recommendations that are explicity in contrast to what institutional risk management might prefer?
Submitted with apologies for potentially jumping-the-gun and eager to see the published article, which most likely addresses this very issue.