Economics, Law, Management, Politics and Sociology Ethics Committee (ELMPS)
Why Ethics?
Ethics is usually defined in relation to standards of conduct or as a set of moral principles or moral judgments (between right and wrong). Research is not a purely technical or instrumental activity - it should be a reflective activity with moral underpinnings. We all need prompts to ensure that we keep learning. Ethics helps us through the cycle of doing, reflecting, doing better next time.
Research processes
Put another way, how we research (process) matters as much as what we produce (outputs). Research processes are important for a number of reasons:
- To ensure that we 'do no harm'. Our research may not - often will not -bring benefits to those we research. It is important that we take precautions to ensure that it does not make matters worse.
- To help manage the uncertainty, uniqueness and dilemmas that are an inevitable part of research. For example, with regard to interviewing members of vulnerable groups, how should we balance 'validating the interviewee/victim', which implies empathy, acknowledgement and belief, with 'validating the story', which involves questioning, greater distance, and even a certain scepticism?
- To ensure that our research relationships are not exploitative.
- To protect our personal reputation, as well as that of our discipline, department and university.
- To ensure that we do not 'spoil the field' for other researchers who come after us.
Informed consent
A range of tools are available to help researchers, from professional and disciplinary codes, to standard techniques such as informed consent. Informed consent is a good place to start when thinking about the core principles of ethical research:
- Disclosure (is the interviewee fully informed about you and your institutional affiliations, as well as your methods, purpose, any risks and potential benefits)
- Voluntariness/respecting autonomy (participation must be fully voluntary - without coercion, undue influence or misrepresentation)
- Comprehension (interviewees must comprehend the implications of the interview: 'going public', 'on' and 'off record' comments, etc.)
- Competence (for example, children or people who are traumatised)
Ethical research practice is best understood as a means of improving your research, and your skills as a researcher. The pages of this website are designed to make this as painless as possible.
Codes and conflict of interest resources
This is a range of material for use when considering the ethical implications of research and teaching. If you have material that you think could usefully add to deliberations then please make us aware of it.
Economic & Social Research Council on Ethics
British Sociological Association
Social Care Research Ethics Committee and Register
Advice on conflicts of interest
- Example from Biomedicine