台灣的研究倫理規範之發展
甘偵蓉 Gan Zhen-Rong1 and 馬克·伊瑟利 Mark Israel2
Many commentators on research ethics have been based in the Global North and, when we find research ethics regulations that look very much like our own, we tend to make assumptions about the ways in which these patterns of regulation have unfolded. Apart from being disrespectful to local histories, insensitive to difference and intellectually lazy, failure to engage with the rich history of regulatory practices in different jurisdictions makes it hard for research ethicists to learn from others. That is hardly a position with which most people working in the field of research ethics would want to be associated.
In earlier editions of Research Ethics Monthly, guest posts from the Philippines have introduced developments in regulation there (Miguel, 2018). In this article, we briefly trace the growth of regulation in Taiwan. It is based on an article recently published in Developing World Bioethics (Gan and Israel, 2019). The pattern of research ethics in Taiwan reflects three distinct but interacting processes.
Transnational Policy Migration
Taiwan transitioned from an authoritarian regime towards democracy through the legalization of opposition parties in 1986 and the end of martial law in 1987. Legislative initiatives to regulate research ethics need to be understood within larger national moves towards good regulatory practice, economic growth and competitiveness and globalization on the one hand, and democratization, Taiwanese nationalism, recognition of multiculturalism and Indigenous rights on the other. Given their country’s political, economic and educational ties to the United States, it is not a surprise that Taiwanese regulators looked to that country for legislative models.
The first legislation governing human trials in Taiwan, the Medical Care Act, was passed in 1986. Subsequent enforcement rules included the Department of Health’s3 Ethical Guidelines for Human Subjects Research in 2007 and its Regulations on Human Trials in 2009 which mandated the application procedure, review criteria and information to be disclosed relating to a human trial, and the 2011 administrative regulations for the Human Biobank Management Act.
Partly in response to a series of biomedical scandals, in 2011 the Taiwan legislature passed the Human Subjects Research Act (HSRA). Before the HSRA came into effect, ethics review was only required by law for clinical trial and human biobank research. The main legislative purpose of the HSRA was to regulate biomedical, healthcare, and behavioural research involving human participants no matter where the work was to be conducted, with whom the principal investigator was affiliated, or which government department funded the research.
Interdisciplinary Policy Transfer
A series of administrative decisions championed by some social scientists, implemented by professionals with experience with health research ethics committees and reinforced by an oversight regime aligned with the biomedical sciences facilitated the extension of a particular form of research ethics regulation from biomedical sciences to other disciplines.
Until the HSRA came into effect in 2011, social scientists were only affected by the regulation of biomedical research ethics if they were funded by particular government departments or conducted research in or were employed by hospitals. Despite the stated purpose of the Act, HSRA changed that. Furthermore, there is evidence that both the legislature and the Department of Health made efforts to avoid extending the ambit of the HSRA. Ultimately, they failed. In time, a range of processes extended the regulation well beyond health sciences.
The first extension came as a result of a change in administrative rules by a government department responsible for funding social research that had already been developing initiatives around research ethics. The National Science Council4 attempted to create research ethics review processes more suitable for social research than those adopted in medical institutions. However, once the HSRA had passed, each time an initiative strayed from the requirements of HSRA the weight of the legislation and its accompanying bureaucracy pulled social science review into line with biomedical standards.
This intensification of scrutiny on social research was not imposed by biomedical organisations but by senior social scientists and legal scholars. These advocates included some who had been socialized into biomedical research ethics practices and had built up professional expertise in that area – either because they had undertaken their postgraduate work in countries like the United States where research ethics review had already been extended to the social sciences or because they had participated in health institutional review boards.
University compliance with the HSRA has been enforced by the Ministry of Education (MOE). MOE took the conservative path of adopting the oversight regulations that had already been operating for ten years at the Department of Health. MOE also invited biomedical researchers with experience of the processes of the Department of Health to support MOE’s inspection role. In turn, most universities had neither the time nor the resources to build up discipline-specific responses. Rather than hiring people with expertise in social research ethics, they appointed as committee chairs or administrative directors those who had already worked on or for biomedical research ethics committees. Application forms, standard operating procedures and resources were often generated quickly by making only minor modifications to existing biomedical resources.
The threat of government sanctions and the associated reputational damage encouraged research institutions and their ethics committees to take risk-averse positions. Some universities required all research involving human participants to follow the HSRA irrespective of methodology or discipline. In these ways, biomedical approaches to research ethics were generalized across all disciplines.
Decolonization
The expansion of the universalist model of research ethics has not been inexorable and was disrupted when power relations between the state and Taiwan’s Indigenous peoples changed. This moment reflected larger scale processes of democratization and Taiwanization, processes that were sometimes antagonistic towards decolonization and the struggle for Indigenous self-determination. It was also made possible by a period when Indigenous legislators held the balance of power in the national legislature and used it to formalize communal rights, rights that might be asserted when negotiating with external researchers. As a result, and partly in reaction to three biomedical scandals concerning Indigenous peoples, Article 15 of the HSRA mandated that researchers who conducted biomedical and healthcare research involving Indigenous peoples not only had to seek individual informed consent but also had to seek consent from their communities in relation to their participation, publication of research results, and commercial benefits.
The various regulations relating to group consent aimed at granting greater liberty to Indigenous communities and tribes, ensuring that conversations occurred between equals and that benefits were shared. Given the history of exploitation of Indigenous peoples in Taiwan, the prospect of strengthening the hand of Indigenous communities in negotiating with researchers is to be welcomed and could be aligned with the current government’s ongoing reconciliation efforts.
Comparative Research Ethics
Expansion of research ethics regulation from a biomedical legislative base and the existence of biomedical scandals prompting further regulatory intervention will not surprise readers in North America or Australasia, nor will the failure to attend specifically to the needs of social researchers.
However, some features of the Taiwan experience are unusual. The role of some social scientists in advocating for the regulations concerning research ethics review to be applied to social research through administrative processes is surprising given the resistance to such moves by most social scientists across the globe. Again, the constitutional position and the slowly unfolding political power of Indigenous people in Taiwan might afford them more say in how they are affected by research than might be the case in some other ‘settler nations’.
Acknowledgements
This article appears in Research Ethics Monthly with the agreement of Wiley and Sons, publishers of Developing World Bioethics.
Gan, Z-R. and Israel, M. (2019) Transnational Policy Migration, Interdisciplinary Policy Transfer and Decolonization: Tracing the Patterns of Research Ethics Regulation in Taiwan. Developing World Bioethics. DOI: 10.1111/dewb.12224
Miguel, T.D. (2018) Undue Influence in Research Between High-Income and Lower-Income Countries. Research Ethics Monthly. 27 September. https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/undue-influence-in-research-between-high-income-and-lower-income-countries
1 Member, Human Research Ethics Committee; Assistant Research Fellow, Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Center for General Education, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. ganrrec@mail.ncku.edu.tw
2 Senior Consultant, Australasian Human Research Ethics Consultancy Services. mark.israel@ahrecs.com
3 The Department of Health of the Executive Yuan, the top-level administrative arm of government, was renamed as the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2013.
4 The Department of Health of the Executive Yuan, the top-level administrative arm of government, was renamed as the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2013.
This post may be cited as:
Gan, Z-R. and Israel, M. (24 April 2019) Tracing the Patterns of Research Ethics Regulation in Taiwan. Research Ethics Monthly. Retrieved from: https://ahrecs.com/human-research-ethics/transnational-policy-migration-interdisciplinary-policy-transfer-and-decolonization-tracing-the-patterns-of-research-ethics-regulation-in-taiwan