Research ethics reviews: responding to the challenges faced by international postgraduate students
In this great post, Mark Israel, Julia Miller, Liwen Tan and Kristy Davis discuss the extra challenges that confront international students when it comes to human research ethics and navigating research ethics review and the daunting challenge of satisfying an unsympathetic research ethics committee.
This scary rite of passage is made even harder if your native language doesn’t have direct translations for ethics terminology or if there are cultural concepts without direct correlation.
This is a matter that should be carefully considered by research ethics committees, research offices, international offices and graduate schools.
Confidence versus mandatory reporting
In this post find out why Gary is cranky about the proposed good practice guide for Australian Research Integrity Advisers.
#SPOILERALERT It is because he believes institutions need a network of collegiate Research Integrity Advisers to nurture and support a community of practice within their institution.
He also thinks mandatory reporting and telling people to speak in hypotheticals are STUPID.
While Gary describes this as a personal opinion, we agree. We don’t see how mandatory reporting will make serving as an RIA would be appealing or encourage anyone to consult them about whether an individual’s practice is appropriate.
AHRECS provides desktop audit and blueprint on Research Integrity within an institution and conducts professional development for RIAs.
Contact enquiry@ahrecs.com to discuss.
Areas of activity
We are delighted with how busy AHRECS is at the moment in the human research ethics and research integrity spheres in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Our current work can be broken down into four categories:
1. Informing the practice of a research institution
2. Fostering and supporting a community of practice
3. Helping with tricky questions
4. Formulating an approach
To discuss any of the above, contact one of our senior consultants, or send an email to Enquiry AHRECS enquiry@ahrecs.com.
While our activities are focussed on Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and…
Element Zero: What’s missing from the National Statement to support Consumer and Community Involvement in health research?
In this great post, Mark, Deborah and Ciara discuss a useful new element for the National Statement that relates to genuine involvement, input and participation for consumers/community members.
Mark Israel, Deborah Hersh and Ciara Shiggins
Advocates in health research of Consumer and Community Involvement – a concept better known in the United Kingdom as Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) – argue that it offers a way of building knowledge that incorporates the experiences and perspectives of a range of stakeholders, including patients and members of the public. Such involvement can improve the experience for research participants, enhance the process of informed consent, aid research impact and dissemination. It might also avoid the waste of resources on findings that have little relevance to end users or that cannot be implemented…
Nobody expects…
In this post, Dr Gary Allen reflects on the establishment and conduct of constructive audits.
Dr Gary Allen
When research with current ethics approval is periodically monitored,[1] it is typically a passive process. Institutions, often via their research ethics administration, will ask researchers to self-report on the continued ethical acceptability of a project (and compliance with any conditions of approval). It would not be unreasonable to conclude that self-reporting is not the most effective way to identify if there have been problems with approved projects. Indeed, if things have gone wrong, it is at least possible that the most troublesome researchers might not be entirely honest about what has happened or why.
So, what is the alternative?
Conducting random audits of a small number of active projects…
Tongue in Cheek
Farida Fozdar responds and reflects upon the February 2021 post by Gary Allen and Mark Israel.
Farida Fozdar
The Tower of Babel (Allen and Israel, 2021) is a compelling image when considering issues to do with translation and interpreting and the ethics of social research. Even when we speak the same language, we may not be ‘speaking the same language’, so to speak (excuse the triple metaphor). Talking past each other occurs in many ways but, in communicating the clear purpose and potential risks of one’s research, clarity is vital. Here, I outline a few issues from personal research experience, arguing that the communities themselves may be best placed to identify ethics issues and solutions to translation and interpreting dilemmas.
When working with those from a language different from that of the researchers, it may be the case that the idea of research is not well understood in the culture of origin…
Why university research ethics committees are vital
In this post Daniel Sokol writes about a troubling research integrity/human research ethics case that relates to Poland, the UK and Australia.
Daniel SokolÂ
When I sat on the Ministry of Defence’s Research Ethics Committee, some research projects were potentially dangerous. The risks of testing a new piece of military diving equipment, for example, are obvious. If it malfunctions, the volunteer could drown or suffer brain damage. The risks of historical research can be more subtle but they are nonetheless real, as shown by a recent case involving the University of Warwick.
Dr Anna Hájková, an associate professor of modern continental European history, researches the queer history of the Holocaust. She claimed that a Jewish prisoner may have engaged in a lesbian sexual relationship with a Nazi guard in Hamburg in 1944.
After the war, the prisoner worked as an actress and emigrated from…
Ethics CoPs not Ethics Police: Building communities of practice in ethics and integrity
In this post Gary Allen and Mark Israel discuss seeding and supporting virtual and physical Communities of Practice and their value over enforcement and policing.
Gary Allen and Mark Israel
Research ethics professionals have grown wary of researchers who talk disparagingly about the work of research ethics reviewers as the ‘ethics police’ (Klitzman, 2015; Makhoul et al., 2014). So, there is more than a little irony in our suggestion for responding constructively to such an adversarial stance (Allen & Israel, 2018) – the Community of Practice (CoP).
A CoP is characterised by a shared area of knowledge and set of practices within which experiences and insights can be shared and learning can be fostered (Wenger et al., 2002). Done well, a CoP can result in continual improvement across and…
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Research Ethics: The Journal
We note that the journal, Research Ethics, is now Open Access. https://journals.sagepub.com/description/rea
Research Ethics is aimed at all readers and authors interested in ethical issues in the conduct of research, the regulation of research, the procedures and process of ethical review as well as broader ethical issues related to research such as scientific integrity and the end uses of research. The journal aims to promote, provoke, host and engage in open and public debate about research ethics on an international scale but also to contribute to the education of researchers and reviewers of research…
All articles in Research Ethics are published as open access. There are no submission charges and no Article Processing Charges as these are fully funded by institutions through Knowledge Unlatched, resulting in no direct charge to authors.
An argument for registers for research ethics committee members
In this great and very helpful post, Gary and Kim (from AHRECS) looks at the benefits of institutions establishing and keeping updated a register of their members.
Such a register could track, when a member was appointed to the committee, when their appointment is up for renewal and the maximum finish date for their appointment. It should also track the dates on which the member has participated in professional development.
Such a register can be a component of good governance with regards to the membership of a research ethics committee.
Maintaining a register of when members have participated in professional development activities can be a great way of reinforcing the expectation that members will regularly participate in professional development. There is of course a reciprocal obligation that institutions regularly conduct internal and fund participation and external professional development activities.
It is good practice for institutions to maintain a public register of the declaration of interest from members. At the very least, such a register should be easily accessible by members of the committee, but it is also recommended that the register be publicly available. Members should be encouraged to at least lodge their interests when they are first appointed and when their membership is renewed.
Australia Day honours recognise contributions to human research ethics
We wish to add our congratulations to two recipients of honours on Australia Day
Can Your HREC Benefit from Coaching?
Atul Gawande, an American surgeon and researcher, sparked a debate in the medical community
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The Research Ethics Monthly is a free monthly publication about human research ethics and research integrity. It is emailed to our subscribers generally towards the end of every month.
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