Karen Robson and Reana Maier, University Affairs/Affaires Universitaires; Research ethics: are we minimizing harm or maximizing bureaucracy?
"Researchers working with human subjects in North America and beyond
are very familiar with ethics protocols required by institutions of
higher education, protocols rightly put in place to minimize harm to
research participants.
In Canada, individual higher education institutions have ethical
jurisdiction over the research conducted within their walls and by their
employees, although these operations are guided by the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS).
First published in 1998 by the three main federal research funding
agencies, the TCPS requires that all university research involving human
subjects be approved by a research ethics board (REB) and outlines the
principles to be upheld in assessing the ethical merits of an
application, though no standardized process of application or evaluation
is given. It is understandable that universities, following the TCPS,
want to put steps in place to minimize the harm researchers may cause to
potential participants.
In recent years, however, the Canadian ethics process seems to have
become more of an exercise in bureaucracy than a reasonable examination
of the harm posed by research, and we fear this process will prevent
actual research from occurring...
We are obviously not arguing against the existence of ethics protocols
or REBs, but we believe that ethics sprawl is discouraging researchers
rather than protecting participants. The fetishization of rules and
bureaucratic process in ethics review and a blanket worst-case scenario
approach is a drain on researchers’ time and resources in return for –
what? Do we have any evidence that this level of procedural minutiae is
providing improved protection of research participants or preventing
unethical research? We might want to consider taking a page from our
colleagues south of the border: the National Science Foundation has, as
of 2017, abolished the need for institutional research board ethical
approval on all projects deemed “low risk.”"
Issues and developments related to ethics, information, and technologies, examined in the ethics and intellectual property graduate courses I teach at the University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information. My Bloomsbury book "Ethics, Information, and Technology" will be published in Summer 2025. Kip Currier, PhD, JD
Showing posts with label minimizing harm to participants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label minimizing harm to participants. Show all posts
Thursday, October 11, 2018
Research ethics: are we minimizing harm or maximizing bureaucracy?; University Affairs/Affaires Universitaires, October 8, 2018
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