A couple of months ago a new Research Ethics Act was implemented in Norway. The rationale for replacing the preceding regulation was to strengthen legal responsibilities of researchers and institutions for promoting acceptable research [1]. According to the new regulation, researchers are held legally responsible for ensuring that they ‘act with caution to ensure that all research is conducted according to recognised research ethical norms’ [2]. At the same time ‘institutions are responsible for: a) necessary training of candidates and employees in recognised research ethical norms and b) that everyone who conducts or participates in the research is familiar with recognised research ethical norms’ [2]. The lawmakers have explicitly left it to the researcher community to define what is covered by ‘recognised norms’ [1], but implicitly the community will also have to define what should go into ‘necessary training’.
This post about a legal requirement in Norway for research ethics training raises questions that are pertinent for Australasia and complement Colin’s ‘More what you’d call guidelines’ post in the Research Ethics Monthly blog (we have added a link to Colin’s post and some other pertinent resource items).
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This new regulation prompts an issue of crucial importance within all research disciplines in general, and within health-related research in particular: What is required for a ‘necessary training’ in health-related research ethics? A justified approach would need to address a variety of challenges. Let me mention some of them here.
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