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6 Professional Ethics: Origins, Applications, and Developments

Hugh Gunz, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Sally Gunz is Professor of Business Law and Professional Ethics in the School of Accounting and Finance, University of Waterloo, Canada. Her primary research interests centre around the legal and ethical responsibilities of professionals and, increasingly, how professionals make ethical decisions, and what factors impact those decisions. She has studied professionals in both employed and private practice settings. She is the author of The New Corporate Counsel (Carswell: 1991) and several academic studies relating to in-house lawyers, lawyers in private practice, accountants and actuaries. She is a past-President of the Academy of Legal Studies in Business and the former director of the Centre for Accounting Ethics.

Ronit Dinovitzer is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, where she is cross appointed to the Institute for Management and Innovation. She is also a Faculty Fellow at the American Bar Foundation in Chicago, where she is Co-Director of the Research Group on Legal Diversity, and she is an Affiliated Faculty in Harvard’s Program on the Legal Profession. As a sociologist of the professions her research focuses on the social organization of lawyers, the role of labor markets, and the effects of culture on professional work. Recent projects include the “After the JD” study, the first national longitudinal study of law graduates in the US, the “Law and Beyond” Study, the first national study of law graduates in Canada, and a Canadian study on Ethics, the Professional Service Firm and Corporate Governance (with Hugh and Sally Gunz).

• Published: 05 October 2015
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

This chapter introduces professional ethics as a specific example of applied or practical ethics. The authors provide a short review of the literature on theoretical and applied ethics in order to give context for the subsequent discussion. They examine three foundational concepts of professional ethics: codes adopted by professional bodies, professional autonomy, and the contested role of gatekeeper. Next, the authors consider ethical pressures experienced by professionals in the non-professional organization (NPO), and then the Professional Service Firm (PSF). Here the authors compare the pressure exerted by employer and clients and examine how so-called “client capture” can become a complex phenomenon when both client and professional are corporate entities. Finally, the chapter considers the challenges for the study of ethics in the PSF highlighted by this account.

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Legal Ethics, Professional Responsibility, and the Legal Profession (Foreword and Table of Contents)

West Academic Publishing (Hornbook Series), 2018

U of St. Thomas (Minnesota) Legal Studies Research Paper No. 18-08

Texas A&M University School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No. 18-18

47 Pages Posted: 12 Jun 2018 Last revised: 14 Aug 2018

Gregory C. Sisk

University of St. Thomas School of Law (Minnesota)

Susan Saab Fortney

Texas A&M University School of Law

Charles Gardner Geyh

Indiana University Maurer School of Law

Neil W. Hamilton

William d. henderson, vincent r. johnson.

Saint Mary's University of San Antonio

Katherine R. Kruse

Mitchell Hamline School of Law

Stephen Pepper

University of Denver College of Law

Melissa Weresh

Drake University - Law School

Date Written: June 8, 2018

As the legal profession undergoes structural changes, longstanding principles of ethics still govern the day-to-day lives of practicing lawyers. This new hornbook on professional responsibility provides both a snapshot of ongoing systemic changes and a thorough examination of the fundamentals of lawyer and judicial ethics. As a multi-dimensional work by scholarly experts in several fields, the hornbook (1) begins with the changing environment in which legal services are provided in the modern economy; (2) continues with a theoretical grounding of legal ethics in moral philosophy; (3) offers empirical evidence and discussion about professional formation and moral development; (4) provides a comprehensive analysis of the law of lawyer ethics; (5) includes a rich discussion of the modern law of legal malpractice, and (6) concludes with exploration of the rules of judicial ethics. The introduction to and table of contents to this new hornbook are included with this posting.

Keywords: legal ethics, professional responsibility, legal profession, judicial ethics, lawyer ethics, legal malpractice, ethics

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Gregory C. Sisk (Contact Author)

University of st. thomas school of law (minnesota) ( email ).

MSL 400, 1000 La Salle Avenue Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 55403-2005 United States 651-962-4892 (Phone)

Texas A&M University School of Law ( email )

1515 Commerce St. Fort Worth, TX Tarrant County 76102 United States 817-212-3902 (Phone)

Indiana University Maurer School of Law ( email )

211 S. Indiana Avenue Bloomington, IN 47405 United States

MSL 400, 1000 La Salle Avenue Minneapolis, MN Minnesota 55403-2005 United States

211 S. Indiana Avenue Bloomington, IN 47405 United States 812-856-1788 (Phone) 812-855-0555 (Fax)

Saint Mary's University of San Antonio ( email )

1 Camino Santa Maria San Antonio, TX 78023 United States 210-431-2131 (Phone)

Mitchell Hamline School of Law ( email )

875 Summit Ave St. Paul, MN 55105-3076 United States

Stephen L. Pepper

University of denver college of law ( email ).

2255 E. Evans Avenue Denver, CO 80208 United States 303-871-6259 (Phone)

Drake University - Law School ( email )

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Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Research Integrity and Research Ethics in Professional Codes of Ethics: Survey of Terminology Used by Professional Organizations across Research Disciplines

Affiliation Medical student, University of Split, School of Medicine, Split, Croatia

Affiliation Rogor, Zagreb, Croatia

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Research in Biomedicine and Health, University of Split, School of Medicine, Split, Croatia

• Dubravka Komić, 
• Stjepan Ljudevit Marušić, 
• Ana Marušić

• Published: July 20, 2015
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133662
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Professional codes of ethics are social contracts among members of a professional group, which aim to instigate, encourage and nurture ethical behaviour and prevent professional misconduct, including research and publication. Despite the existence of codes of ethics, research misconduct remains a serious problem. A survey of codes of ethics from 795 professional organizations from the Illinois Institute of Technology’s Codes of Ethics Collection showed that 182 of them (23%) used research integrity and research ethics terminology in their codes, with differences across disciplines: while the terminology was common in professional organizations in social sciences (82%), mental health (71%), sciences (61%), other organizations had no statements (construction trades, fraternal social organizations, real estate) or a few of them (management, media, engineering). A subsample of 158 professional organizations we judged to be directly involved in research significantly more often had statements on research integrity/ethics terminology than the whole sample: an average of 10.4% of organizations with a statement (95% CI = 10.4-23-5%) on any of the 27 research integrity/ethics terms compared to 3.3% (95% CI = 2.1–4.6%), respectively (P<0.001). Overall, 62% of all statements addressing research integrity/ethics concepts used prescriptive language in describing the standard of practice. Professional organizations should define research integrity and research ethics issues in their ethics codes and collaborate within and across disciplines to adequately address responsible conduct of research and meet contemporary needs of their communities.

Citation: Komić D, Marušić SL, Marušić A (2015) Research Integrity and Research Ethics in Professional Codes of Ethics: Survey of Terminology Used by Professional Organizations across Research Disciplines. PLoS ONE 10(7): e0133662. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133662

Editor: Jelte M. Wicherts, Tilburg University, NETHERLANDS

Received: December 29, 2014; Accepted: June 30, 2015; Published: July 20, 2015

Copyright: © 2015 Komić et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information files. Data are from a publicly available database ( http://ethics.iit.edu/ecodes/ ).

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. SLM is a freelancer for Rogor, who did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific role of this author is articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.

Competing interests: The authors have the following interests: Stjepan Ljudevit Marušić is a freelancer under the trading name 'Rogor', Zagreb, Croatia. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Introduction

There are many definitions of professional codes of ethics and their functions [ 1 ] but they can generally be described as formal documents sending a message to the professional community about moral standards guiding professional behaviour. These moral standards also address research and publication activities in most professional societies across disciplines [ 1 ]. Judging from the increasing evidence for the seriousness of research misconduct at the global level [ 2 – 4 ], ethics codes have failed miserably in preventing research misconduct, as the practical definition of an ineffective code is that it “has failed to prevent illegal or unethical behaviour… that was prohibited in the code” [ 5 ].

Just as there are many definitions of professional codes of ethics, there are also many definitions of research integrity and misconduct, which vary a lot according to the legislative definitions in different countries [ 4 ]. In general, research integrity can be defined as “research behaviour viewed from the perspective of professional standards” and is different from research ethics, which is “research behaviour viewed from the perspective of moral principles” [ 6 ]. Research integrity (RI) is a part of responsible conduct of research–the ideal behaviour in research, contrasted by deliberate misconduct on the other side of the behavioural spectrum, which includes fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP) as the worst behaviour [ 6 ]. In the middle of this behavioural spectrum are the so-called questionable research practices (QRP), which “violate traditional values or commonly accepted practices, from initial project design through to publication and peer review” [ 6 ]. Questionable research practices include inaccuracy, misrepresentation and bias in research and publishing [ 4 , 6 ].

Despite the importance of research integrity, it is not clear how professions define and communicate this concept to their membership. There is a wealth of research into codes of ethics, particularly in business [ 1 , 7 ] but little data on how current concepts of research integrity and research misconduct are addressed in the codes. A study of 90 codes from 61 scientific professional organizations funded by the National Science Foundation in the USA in 1998 demonstrated that only 39% had general statements on the need to give proper credit in publications and only 17% provided a definition of authorship [ 8 ]. The codes used mostly normative, prescriptive language to describe the “minimum levels of appropriate behaviour” [ 8 ]. A comparison of codes/policies from peer-reviewed journals and professional organizations, showed that 53% of the journals and only 11% of professional codes had authorship definitions [ 9 ]. Professional codes of ethics used a prescriptive language more often than journals (75% vs 18%) in defining authorship [ 9 ]. In a qualitative study of 46 scientific organization codes of ethics [ 10 ], the codes included issues such as honesty in conducting and reporting research; fairness and integrity in authorship; appropriate use of public funds; sharing, preservation and dissemination of research results; and responsibility for the integrity of the published record (for organizations with strong publishing activity).

This article attempts to provide the basic landscape for research integrity in professional codes of ethics across different disciplines. We took advantage of the existence of a large online collection of professional codes of ethics, created and maintained by The Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP) from the Illinois Institute of Technology [ 11 ]. The Codes of Ethics Collection database was started in 1996, when it was developed through a grant from the US National Science Foundation [ 12 ]. The codes are classified into 28 different categories of professional organizations and have been contributed by academic organizations, businesses, industry associations, fraternal organizations, government organizations, non-profit organizations and professional associations.

We searched all codes from the Codes of Ethics Collection database for the corpus of research integrity/ethics terms generated from literature and discussion with experts, and counted these statements. We developed the list of research integrity/ethics terms from the definitions provided in the article by N. Steneck from the Office of Research Integrity of the US Department for Health and Human Services in 2006 [ 6 ]. We first created a list of 23 terms, which were piloted with a group of 5 researchers in the area of research integrity and ethics (listed in the Acknowledgment section: 1 editor of a medical journal and researcher in publishing integrity and ethics, 3 researchers in moral reasoning and research integrity and ethics, and 1 editor and researcher, former Chair of the Committee on Publication Ethics, COPE). After consultations, some of the terms were rephrases and 3 new terms were added. The list was then discussed with the participants of the 3 rd World Congress on Research Integrity (May 2013), where we presented our preliminary analysis [ 13 ]; the discussion resulted in addition of one more term to designate conflict of interest (‘dual relationship’). The final search set included 27 RI concepts (in alphabetical order): 1) Author/Authorship, 2) Bias (including bias due to conflict of interest), 3) Competing interest, 4) Conflict of interest, 5) Contributor/Contribution, 6) Credit, 7) Dishonesty, 8) Dual interest/relationship, 9) Ethics, 10) Fabrication, 11) Falsification, 12) Fraud/Fraudulent, 13) Honesty, 14) Inaccuracy, 15) Integrity, 16) Malpractice, 17) Manipulation, 18) Misconduct, 19) Misrepresentation, 20) Plagiarism, 21) Questionable publication practices (QPP)–duplicate publication, 22) QPP–redundant publication, 23) QPP–repetitive publication, 24) QPP–salami publication, 25) QPP–secondary publication, 26) Questionable research practices, 27) Responsible conduct of research.

For analysis, we classified the terms into three groups, which are usually described to span the whole spectrum of research behaviour–from responsible conduct of research (RCR) over questionable research practices (QRP) to research misconduct (FFP–fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism) [ 6 ]. “Questionable research practices” is the term used by the Office of Research Integrity in the USA to describe “actions that violate traditional values of the research enterprise and that may be detrimental to the research process”, but are not directly damaging to research as is FFP [ 6 ]. The 27 terms identified for this study were arbitrarily divided into these three groups: RCR–‘ethics’, ‘responsible conduct of research’, ‘integrity’, ‘honesty’, ‘authorship’, ‘contributorship’, and ‘credit’; QRP–‘inaccuracy’, ‘misrepresentation’, ‘questionable research practices’, ‘bias’, ‘conflict of interest’, ‘competing interest’, ‘dual interest/relationship’, and ‘questionable publication practices (duplicate, redundant, repetitive and salami publications)’; and research misconduct–‘falsification’, ‘fabrication’, plagiarism’, ‘misconduct’, ‘malpractice’, ‘fraud’, ‘manipulation’ and ‘dishonesty’. We deliberately used overlapping terms and synonyms, as well as terminology related to research ethics, in order to increase the sensitivity of the search, so that we could identify all and any ethics statement that would use these terms in the context of research. Where needed, we used variations of the term to increase the sensitivity of the search (e.g. ‘author’ and ‘authorship’; ‘contribution’, ‘contributor’ and ‘contributorship’; and ‘fraud’ and ‘fraudulent’). Only the statements where the search terms were used to address research activity and not only professional duties were included in the analysis. The last search was performed in October 2013. We did not use any time-limits to the search, so different codes of the same organizations were retrieved. For the code documents with the same title but different dates of issue, only the latest version was analyzed. Documents with different titles from the same professional organization were all analyzed, irrespective of the date of issue. Data extraction and analysis was performed by two authors (DK and AM), with high inter-rater agreement (kappa = 0.997, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.995–0.999). In cases of disagreement, the two raters discussed the discrepancies and made a consensus decision on the inclusion of a statement in the final analysis. We first analyzed the statements mentioning research integrity/ethics terms from all retrieved professional organizations and then performed a separate analysis for research-related professions. Organizations involved in performing or regulating research were identified as those having the term ‘research’ or ‘science’ in their name or the following terms: ‘academy’, ‘alliance’, ‘association’, ‘board’, ‘center/centre’, ‘chamber’, ‘committee’, ‘congress’, ‘council’, ‘federation’, ‘institute’, ‘journal’, ‘society’, or ‘university’.

For statements included in the analysis, we assessed the tone of the language in the statements addressing research integrity/ethics terms, using the method developed by Rose [ 8 ]. The language of a statement was categorized as either aspirational , when it formulated suggestions for best or desired practices, such as using the words “strive to,” “attempt to,” “endeavour to,” or “seek” or prescriptive – normative , when the statement defined minimal standards for practice which should not be failed by any researcher. For example, the statement “ I shall strive to avoid scientific and professional misconduct including , but not limited to fraud , fabrication , plagiarism , concealment , inappropriate omission of information , and making false or deceptive statements .” was considered aspirational, and the statement “ … members shall not commit scientific misconduct , defined as fabrication , falsification , or plagiarism .” was classified as prescriptive. Two authors (SLM and AM) independently coded the language of the retrieved statements. Kappa index for agreement in coding ranged from 0.719 to 1 for individual terms; the median kappa for all coded terms was 0.940 (95% CI = 0.924–1.000). All differences were resolved by discussion and final agreement on the language coding.

The data were presented as frequencies for categorical variables and means or medians with 95% confidence interval (CI) for continuous variables, depending of the normality of data distribution, as tested by D'Agostino-Pearson test (MedCalc statistical software v.13.0.2; Ostend, Belgium). No statistical tests were employed for comparisons among research integrity/ethics terms or organizations since sampling was not performed. Student t-test for independent samples was used to compare the subsample of research-related organizations with the total sample.

Prevalence of research integrity/ethics terms in professional codes of ethics

At the time of the search, the database had a collection of electronic formats of ethic codes from 795 professional organizations. Out of those, 182 (23%) organizations had codes with at least one research integrity/ethics term (full database in S1 File , list of organizations in Table A in S2 File ). Most of the organizations that addressed any research integrity/ethics term in their codes were national societies or associations (n = 142, 78%), followed by international societies/associations (n = 20, 11%); there were 7 government institutions (4%, all from USA), 5 universities/institutes (3%), 5 business corporations (3%) and 3 journals (2%).

The number of terms (concepts) addressed by an organization ranged from 1 to 20, with a median of 2 (95% CI 2–3). The body with the highest number of research integrity/ethics terms addressed (20 out of 27) was the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), followed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (United States Department of Commerce) which addressed 17 terms, while the Academy for Certification of Vision Rehabilitation and Education Professionals, American Chemical Society, American Sociological Association and United States Fish and Wildlife Service addressed 14 terms each.

Most commonly addressed research integrity/ethics terms (more than 5% of 795 organizations) were ‘inaccuracy’, ‘ethics’, terms related to authorship and credit for research, ‘plagiarism’, ‘conflict of interest’ and ‘integrity’ ( Table 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133662.t001

We separately searched for three terms related to the concept of giving proper credit for research contribution: ‘author(ship)’, ‘contributor(ship)’ and ‘credit’ ( Table 1 ). Whereas ‘authorship’ was defined in a total of 78 statements, 46% of ‘contributor(ship)’ statements (n = 46 of 99) were a part of an authorship definition. ‘Credit for research’ was addressed independently of authorship or contributorship in 42 (52%) of all statements mentioning this concept (n = 81, Table 1 ).

After deduplication of organizations and statements, terms related to deliberate misconduct, including FFP, were addressed by 78 organizations (10%), with a total of 253 statements. Among these concepts, ‘plagiarism’ was the term addressed by most of the organizations (7%) and in the largest number of statements ( Table 1 ). The so-called Questionable research practices, as defined by the Office of Research Integrity in the USA [ 6 ], were addressed by 119 (15%) organizations in 313 statements. Questionable publishing practices [ 6 ], such as ‘duplicate’, ‘redundant’ or ‘secondary publication’ were rarely addressed by professional organizations: only 13 (1.6%) organizations addressed any of these concepts, with a total of 19 statements. Whereas no organizations provided any instruction on ‘salami publications’ or ‘salami slicing’ (least-publishable unit or publishing a single study in several partial publication) [ 6 ], ‘duplicate publication’ (publishing of the same data more than once without reference to the earlier version) [ 6 ] was addressed in 11 statements by 10 (1.3%) organizations ( Table 1 ).

We also analyzed a subset of ethical codes from 158 professional organizations we judged to be directly involved in research ( Table 2 ) (list in Table B in S2 File ). These organizations significantly more often had statements on research integrity/ethics terms than the whole sample of professional organizations: average of 10.4% (95% CI = 10.4-23-5%) on any of the 27 concepts compared to 3.3% of organizations with a statement (95% CI = 2.1–4.6%), respectively (t df = 52 = 4.186, P<0.001). The ranking of most frequently used terms was similar to that observed in the total sample.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133662.t002

Language of statements addressing research integrity/ethics terms

We analyzed a total of 1072 statements retrieved by individual term searches, representing 652 unique statements because some individual statements addressed more than one RI concept. Overall, 62% of all statements used prescriptive language in describing the standard of practice. For the analysis of statement language tone for individual research integrity/ethics terms the total set of 1072 statements was used.

Terms addressing responsible conduct of research were mostly described in prescriptive language (309 (61%) of the total of 504 statements) ( Table 1 ). The concept addressed with slightly more statements in aspirational than prescriptive language was ‘integrity’ (58% vs 42%, respectively) ( Table 1 ).

Statements describing research misconduct were also written predominantly in prescriptive language (159 (63%) of 253 statements). Whereas the statements on research fabrication, falsification and plagiarism (FFP) were prescriptive in almost three thirds of the statements, the language of statements describing ‘manipulation’, ‘dishonesty’, ‘fraud’ and ‘misconduct’ was mixed, with equal prevalence of the two language tones or small dominance of aspirational (for ‘dishonesty’ and ‘manipulation’) ( Table 1 ).

Prescriptive language also dominated in the statements addressing the so-called questionable research practices, as 190 (61%) statements out of total 313 used the normative tone. The statements related to research misconduct more often included the description of a procedure to address the breach of integrity (15% of the statement for research misconduct vs 2% for responsible conduct of research concepts and 1% for questionable research practices).

Prescriptive language also dominated in the statements from the subgroup of 158 professional organizations directly related to research ( Table 2 ). There were no differences in the prevalence of prescriptive language among statements for research integrity/ethics concepts: average prevalence of 49.0 (95% CI 37.9-60-1%) for the research professional organizations compared to 53.9% (95% CI 43.8–64.0%) for the total sample (t df = 52 = –0.668, P = 0.507).

RI statements in different professional fields

The above analysis included all statements from individual organizations. However, the results we obtained may not be the reflection of the actual visibility or awareness of these concepts in different research disciplines. The Codes of Ethics Collection database organizes ethics codes into 28 categories, where some organizations are included in more than one category. For example, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) was included in 5 categories: ‘Communications’, ‘Media’, ‘Other Professions’, ‘Science’, and ‘Social Science’s, whereas World Medical Association was included in ‘Health Care’ and in ‘Service Organizations’. Table 3 presents the analysis of research integrity/ethics terms addressed and the language of the statements across different professional disciplines, regardless of their overlap in included organizations, in order to assess the visibility of research integrity/ethics concepts within a discipline rather than in individual professional organizations.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133662.t003

A median of 15% of organizations in any category (95% CI 10–335) had a statement that addressed research integrity/ethics concepts. This prevalence ranged from 0% in categories ‘Construction Trades’, ‘Fraternal Social Organizations’ and ‘Real Estate’ to 82% in ‘Social Sciences’, 71% in ‘Mental Health and Counselling’, and ‘Science’ ( Table 3 ). Most of the organizations addressing research integrity/ethics concepts in their codes belonged to the research-related organizations as defined in our study ( Table 4 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133662.t004

The average number of research integrity/ethics concepts addressed by a professional discipline was 11.8 (95% CI for the mean 8.9–14.8). No research integrity topics were addressed by organizations in the categories of ‘Construction Trades’ (n = 17 organizations), ‘Fraternal Social Organizations’ (n = 5) and ‘Real Estate’ (n = 6). Organizations in categories ‘Health Care’ addressed 24 (96%), and those in ‘Science’ addressed 24 (89%) out of 27 concepts. The median number of statements per professional discipline was 29 (95% CI 13–42), ranging from 3 for the ‘Finance’ to 478 for the ‘Science’ category. Prescriptive language in the statements predominated across disciplines, with the average percentage of 58.5% (95% CI 47.0%-70.0%).

Although the size of the category, expressed as the number of organizations having a code addressing research integrity/ethics concepts, positively correlated with the number of statements identified for each category ( Table 3 ), there were categories with an exceptionally large number of statements, such as ‘Sciences’, where 46 organizations had 478 statements. The ‘Health Care’ category had 47 organizations, with 280 statements.

In relation to individual concepts, none of the professional disciplines addressed all concepts. The number of organizations addressing an individual research integrity/ethics concept ranged from 2 to 23 (median 17, 95% CI 7–18). RI topics most commonly addressed were: ‘inaccuracy’ (n = 23 professional disciplines), ‘credit’ (n = 21), ‘integrity’ (n = 21), ‘plagiarism’ (n = 19), author (n = 19), ‘contributor’ (n = 19), ‘honesty’ (n = 18), ‘conflict of interest’ (n = 18), ‘falsification’ (n = 18), ‘fabrication’ (n = 18) and ‘misconduct’ (n = 17). ‘malpractice’ and ‘salami publications’ were not addressed by organizations in any of the professional disciplines. The concepts addressed by the fewest organization categories were ‘repetitive publication’ (n = 3, categories ‘Health Care’, ‘Science’, ‘Service Organizations’), ‘secondary publication’ (n = 3, categories ‘Communication’, ‘Health Care’ and ‘Science’) and ‘questionable research practices’ (n = 2, categories ‘Science’ and ‘Education and Academia’).

The subsample of professional organizations directly related to research did not differ from the total sample ( Table 4 ), in the average number of concepts addressed by organizations (average of 12.6%, 95% CI 9.4–15.8%; range 1 to 415), average number of statements per professional organization of 20.0%, 13.1–64.8%), prevalence of statements with prescriptive language (average of 58%, 95% CI 47.0–70.0%), number of statements per professional categories, and number of organizations addressing individual concepts (average of 11.1 organizations, 95% CI 8.8–13.5%).

Our survey demonstrated that the important terms (concepts) concerning the broad field of research integrity and ethics are not in the focus of professional communities, despite high prevalence of research misconduct and violations of responsible conduct of research [ 2 – 4 ]. The fact that only 23% of 795 professional organizations had a code that addressed at least one of the well-known and generally accepted research integrity/ethics terms [ 6 ] is not good news for the scientific community. It is also worrying that even those organizations that defined research integrity concepts in their codes only addressed a small number of important terms, from 2 to 3 per organization. In the subsample of professional organizations directly involved in research (n = 158), codes of ethics on average addressed three times more RI terms that the whole sample. In both groups, the language of the statements on research integrity/ethics terms was predominantly prescriptive, setting minimal standards which must not be failed. In this way, a strong message is sent to its members about expected professional behaviour.

Some professional fields, such as ‘Education and Academia’, ‘Health Care, ‘Mental Health/Counselling’, ‘Science’ and ‘Other Professions’ (as classified in the Collection) had the highest number of organizations and the highest number of statements addressing research integrity/ethics concepts per organization. This indicates that some professions, especially those providing care for human individuals or providing teaching services pay special attention to research as an important aspect of their work. The most commonly addressed research integrity/ethics concepts were ethics and authorship/contributorship/credit from the “positive” spectrum of research behaviour, and inaccuracy, plagiarism and conflict of interest among the” negative” spectrum of research behaviour. These concepts are very old, and provide the base for moral judgments in any profession [ 10 ]. Newer research integrity/ethics concepts, such as ‘responsible conduct of research’ and ‘questionable research practices’, commonly used in research on research integrity [ 6 ], seem not to have found their way into all professions.

A limitation to the study is the fact that the Collection of Codes may not be representative of the research community, which is most acutely concerned with research integrity. However, 475 out of 795 analyzed organizations (60%) had the term ‘association’, ‘federation’, ‘society’, ‘academy’, ‘college’, ‘university’, ‘congress’ or ‘council’, or ‘science’ in their title. Even in this subsample of professional organizations that should address research and publishing activities the prevalence of research integrity statements was only 38%. When we analyzed a subsample of organizations that may be directly related to research (judging from their names) and that addressed research integrity/ethics concepts in their codes, we found a greater number of concepts addressed than in the whole sample. Also, organizations from this subsample were responsible for 82% of the statements addressing research integrity/ethics concepts in the whole sample. However, we would argue that this distinction between research and non-research professional organizations is artificial. Although research is not explicitly mentioned in most of the definitions of professional codes of ethics [ 1 ], it is implicit that a profession should be engaged in collecting evidence and using it for its further development. This is reflected in the definition of profession by Cogan [ 14 ] as a “vocation whose practice is founded upon an understanding of the theoretical structure of some department of learning or science, and upon abilities accompanying such understanding.” This is illustrated by the fact that the organizations from the ‘Government and Military’ and ‘Wildlife and Environmental Stewardship’ categories did not include research-related organizations, but still addressed important research integrity/ethics concepts (9 ‘Government and Military’ organizations addressed 18 concepts in 90 statements and 2 Wildlife and Environmental Stewardship’ organizations addressed 14 concepts in 35 statements). Furthermore, some of the disciplines traditionally considered as research-oriented, had a small prevalence of organizations with a code addressing research integrity/ethics concepts, such as 8% for ‘Engineering’.

Another limitation of the study is the fact that we analyzed only the codes available online. It is possible that professional organizations have relevant guidelines in a printed form or on a web-site different from the one provided in the Collection. For a few that were not transcribed into the database, such as the one from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, we analyzed the content of the website provided in the link. We did not attempt to retrieve the codes that were available only in a printed version. Our intention was to investigate the codes available in the public domain because one of the important aspects of a profession is to provide service, i.e. have a public purpose [ 1 ]. Our search strategy was designed to be sensitive, so that the statements with any term related to research integrity/ethics could be identified. This resulted in terminological overlaps and synonyms, which were all included in the analysis. We also did not perform a qualitative analysis of the content of the statements, so it is possible that brief and vague statements that included more than one research integrity/ethics term would contribute more to the frequency analysis in this study than a long and detailed statement with a single term. The search strategy also did not have a time limit, which introduced a bias, as our intention was to provide a time–independent landscape of research integrity/ethics concepts in professional organizations. Furthermore, the Collection is dominated by organizations from the USA and thus biased towards scientific communities in developed, high-income countries. In view of this fact, the survey findings are even more worrying because evidence shows that research misconduct is at least as prevalent in low–and middle–income countries as it is in high–income countries [ 4 ], and in some aspects of research misbehaviour, such as authorship [ 3 ] or plagiarism [ 15 ], it can even be a greater problem. Finally, the categorization of codes and language of the statement was a subjective and arbitrary process and thus prone to bias; however, the agreement in coding between two independent reviewers was high, indicating consistency in the applied methodology, and the terminology was developed in collaboration with experts in research integrity research and based on commonly used terms in this community (such as current World Conferences on Research Integrity and past RI research on research integrity conferences [ 6 ]).

The findings of our study should inform professional organizations to revise and update their codes to include current concepts in research integrity and ethics. Such a change will probably not guarantee the change in research behaviour, as the current evidence base for the effectiveness of codes of ethics in changing behaviour is controversial [ 7 ]. However, as professional organizations are moral agents in a self-organized community [ 16 ], they have an influence on the moral judgments of that same community and the public in general through the profession’s engagement in providing a service to the public. Furthermore, as research integrity is behaviour in research related to professional standards and not necessarily only moral standards [ 6 ], it would be easier for the professional organizations and the professional community in general to establish and implement such standard than to ensure strict adherence to moral rules. Most of the professional organizations that had addressed research integrity/ethics concepts in their codes used the prescriptive language in the statements, establishing a norm for a professional behaviour. Such language tone sends a clear signal about the minimal standards for professional practice in responsible conduct of research, i.e. working rules for everyday professional research activities [ 8 , 10 ]. Such language may not be applicable to concepts that are more related to research ethics than to integrity. Research on the codes of ethics in business [ 17 ] showed that the use of language may greatly influence the perception of a code among its users. For example, overuse of grammatical structures such as relational clauses, the passive, nominalisation, grammatical metaphor and modality may communicate an authoritarian message and sense of over-obligation, which establishes a feeling of powerlessness and the inability for open decision making for the individual [ 17 ]. This may deter a professional from using professional codes of ethics, as was shown in a national survey of physicians in the USA, where only one in four practicing physician acknowledged a strong influence of the traditional (Hippocratic) oath or other professional codes in their practice, relying rather on their own personal moral sense [ 18 ].

Professional organizations need also to address how their professional standards in research are presented to the public. The quality of a code of ethics depends on its pubic availability, involvement of the governing structures, readability and tone, non-retaliation and reporting, commitment and values, risk topics, comprehension aids and presentation and style [ 19 ]. The quality of the code has to be integrated in a complex process of code development and implementation, where the success at the level of stakeholders in a profession and the society as a whole are determined by factors both internal and external to the profession. Professional communities should also collaborate across disciplinary borders and share experiences in defining, preventing and dealing with research integrity and research misconduct. A good example of trans-disciplinary collaboration is a recent exercise from the US Institute of Medicine, which worked on a unified code of ethics for health professionals from 18 different disciplines related to health [ 20 ]. Only by taking a serious and conscientious approach to research integrity, professional communities in different disciplines can make their codes of ethics relevant to the changing landscape of science.

Supporting Information

S1 file. database of ethic codes with statements on research integrity terms analysed in the study..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133662.s001

S2 File. List of all professional organizations (Table A) and professional organizations directly involved in research activities (Table B).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133662.s002

Acknowledgments

This study was presented in part at the 3 rd World Conference on Research Integrity, Montreal, Canada, 5–8 May 2013.

We thank our colleagues who were involved in the discussion of research integrity concepts: Prof. Matko Marušić, MD, PhD and Mario Malički, MD, from the University of Split School of Medicine, Split, Croatia; Assist. Prof. Darko Hren, PhD, from the University of Split School of Humanities and Social Sciences; Prof. Vedran Katavić, MD, PhD, from the University of Zagreb School of Medicine; Prof. Elizabeth Wager, PhD, from Sideview and Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), UK; and participants at the 3 rd World Conference on Research Integrity, Montreal, Canada, who also made suggestions on research integrity/ethics terminology during poster presentation of the study pilot results.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AM. Performed the experiments: DK SLM AM. Analyzed the data: DK SLM AM. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DK SLM AM. Wrote the paper: DK SLM AM. Wrote the first draft of the manuscript: AM.

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Methodology

• Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples

Ethical Considerations in Research | Types & Examples

Published on October 18, 2021 by Pritha Bhandari . Revised on May 9, 2024.

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research designs and practices. Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting data from people.

The goals of human research often include understanding real-life phenomena, studying effective treatments, investigating behaviors, and improving lives in other ways. What you decide to research and how you conduct that research involve key ethical considerations.

These considerations work to

• protect the rights of research participants
• enhance research validity
• maintain scientific or academic integrity

Table of contents

Why do research ethics matter, getting ethical approval for your study, types of ethical issues, voluntary participation, informed consent, confidentiality, potential for harm, results communication, examples of ethical failures, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about research ethics.

Research ethics matter for scientific integrity, human rights and dignity, and collaboration between science and society. These principles make sure that participation in studies is voluntary, informed, and safe for research subjects.

You’ll balance pursuing important research objectives with using ethical research methods and procedures. It’s always necessary to prevent permanent or excessive harm to participants, whether inadvertent or not.

Defying research ethics will also lower the credibility of your research because it’s hard for others to trust your data if your methods are morally questionable.

Even if a research idea is valuable to society, it doesn’t justify violating the human rights or dignity of your study participants.

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Before you start any study involving data collection with people, you’ll submit your research proposal to an institutional review board (IRB) .

An IRB is a committee that checks whether your research aims and research design are ethically acceptable and follow your institution’s code of conduct. They check that your research materials and procedures are up to code.

If successful, you’ll receive IRB approval, and you can begin collecting data according to the approved procedures. If you want to make any changes to your procedures or materials, you’ll need to submit a modification application to the IRB for approval.

If unsuccessful, you may be asked to re-submit with modifications or your research proposal may receive a rejection. To get IRB approval, it’s important to explicitly note how you’ll tackle each of the ethical issues that may arise in your study.

There are several ethical issues you should always pay attention to in your research design, and these issues can overlap with each other.

You’ll usually outline ways you’ll deal with each issue in your research proposal if you plan to collect data from participants.

Voluntary participation means that all research subjects are free to choose to participate without any pressure or coercion.

All participants are able to withdraw from, or leave, the study at any point without feeling an obligation to continue. Your participants don’t need to provide a reason for leaving the study.

It’s important to make it clear to participants that there are no negative consequences or repercussions to their refusal to participate. After all, they’re taking the time to help you in the research process , so you should respect their decisions without trying to change their minds.

Voluntary participation is an ethical principle protected by international law and many scientific codes of conduct.

Take special care to ensure there’s no pressure on participants when you’re working with vulnerable groups of people who may find it hard to stop the study even when they want to.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Informed consent refers to a situation in which all potential participants receive and understand all the information they need to decide whether they want to participate. This includes information about the study’s benefits, risks, funding, and institutional approval.

You make sure to provide all potential participants with all the relevant information about

• what the study is about
• the risks and benefits of taking part
• how long the study will take
• your supervisor’s contact information and the institution’s approval number

Usually, you’ll provide participants with a text for them to read and ask them if they have any questions. If they agree to participate, they can sign or initial the consent form. Note that this may not be sufficient for informed consent when you work with particularly vulnerable groups of people.

If you’re collecting data from people with low literacy, make sure to verbally explain the consent form to them before they agree to participate.

For participants with very limited English proficiency, you should always translate the study materials or work with an interpreter so they have all the information in their first language.

In research with children, you’ll often need informed permission for their participation from their parents or guardians. Although children cannot give informed consent, it’s best to also ask for their assent (agreement) to participate, depending on their age and maturity level.

Anonymity means that you don’t know who the participants are and you can’t link any individual participant to their data.

You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any personally identifying information—for example, names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, physical characteristics, photos, and videos.

In many cases, it may be impossible to truly anonymize data collection . For example, data collected in person or by phone cannot be considered fully anonymous because some personal identifiers (demographic information or phone numbers) are impossible to hide.

You’ll also need to collect some identifying information if you give your participants the option to withdraw their data at a later stage.

Data pseudonymization is an alternative method where you replace identifying information about participants with pseudonymous, or fake, identifiers. The data can still be linked to participants but it’s harder to do so because you separate personal information from the study data.

Confidentiality means that you know who the participants are, but you remove all identifying information from your report.

All participants have a right to privacy, so you should protect their personal data for as long as you store or use it. Even when you can’t collect data anonymously, you should secure confidentiality whenever you can.

Some research designs aren’t conducive to confidentiality, but it’s important to make all attempts and inform participants of the risks involved.

As a researcher, you have to consider all possible sources of harm to participants. Harm can come in many different forms.

• Psychological harm: Sensitive questions or tasks may trigger negative emotions such as shame or anxiety.
• Social harm: Participation can involve social risks, public embarrassment, or stigma.
• Physical harm: Pain or injury can result from the study procedures.
• Legal harm: Reporting sensitive data could lead to legal risks or a breach of privacy.

It’s best to consider every possible source of harm in your study as well as concrete ways to mitigate them. Involve your supervisor to discuss steps for harm reduction.

Make sure to disclose all possible risks of harm to participants before the study to get informed consent. If there is a risk of harm, prepare to provide participants with resources or counseling or medical services if needed.

Some of these questions may bring up negative emotions, so you inform participants about the sensitive nature of the survey and assure them that their responses will be confidential.

The way you communicate your research results can sometimes involve ethical issues. Good science communication is honest, reliable, and credible. It’s best to make your results as transparent as possible.

Take steps to actively avoid plagiarism and research misconduct wherever possible.

Plagiarism means submitting others’ works as your own. Although it can be unintentional, copying someone else’s work without proper credit amounts to stealing. It’s an ethical problem in research communication because you may benefit by harming other researchers.

Self-plagiarism is when you republish or re-submit parts of your own papers or reports without properly citing your original work.

This is problematic because you may benefit from presenting your ideas as new and original even though they’ve already been published elsewhere in the past. You may also be infringing on your previous publisher’s copyright, violating an ethical code, or wasting time and resources by doing so.

In extreme cases of self-plagiarism, entire datasets or papers are sometimes duplicated. These are major ethical violations because they can skew research findings if taken as original data.

You notice that two published studies have similar characteristics even though they are from different years. Their sample sizes, locations, treatments, and results are highly similar, and the studies share one author in common.

Research misconduct

Research misconduct means making up or falsifying data, manipulating data analyses, or misrepresenting results in research reports. It’s a form of academic fraud.

These actions are committed intentionally and can have serious consequences; research misconduct is not a simple mistake or a point of disagreement about data analyses.

Research misconduct is a serious ethical issue because it can undermine academic integrity and institutional credibility. It leads to a waste of funding and resources that could have been used for alternative research.

Later investigations revealed that they fabricated and manipulated their data to show a nonexistent link between vaccines and autism. Wakefield also neglected to disclose important conflicts of interest, and his medical license was taken away.

This fraudulent work sparked vaccine hesitancy among parents and caregivers. The rate of MMR vaccinations in children fell sharply, and measles outbreaks became more common due to a lack of herd immunity.

Research scandals with ethical failures are littered throughout history, but some took place not that long ago.

Some scientists in positions of power have historically mistreated or even abused research participants to investigate research problems at any cost. These participants were prisoners, under their care, or otherwise trusted them to treat them with dignity.

To demonstrate the importance of research ethics, we’ll briefly review two research studies that violated human rights in modern history.

These experiments were inhumane and resulted in trauma, permanent disabilities, or death in many cases.

After some Nazi doctors were put on trial for their crimes, the Nuremberg Code of research ethics for human experimentation was developed in 1947 to establish a new standard for human experimentation in medical research.

In reality, the actual goal was to study the effects of the disease when left untreated, and the researchers never informed participants about their diagnoses or the research aims.

Although participants experienced severe health problems, including blindness and other complications, the researchers only pretended to provide medical care.

When treatment became possible in 1943, 11 years after the study began, none of the participants were offered it, despite their health conditions and high risk of death.

Ethical failures like these resulted in severe harm to participants, wasted resources, and lower trust in science and scientists. This is why all research institutions have strict ethical guidelines for performing research.

If you want to know more about statistics , methodology , or research bias , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

• Normal distribution
• Measures of central tendency
• Chi square tests
• Confidence interval
• Quartiles & Quantiles
• Cluster sampling
• Stratified sampling
• Thematic analysis
• Cohort study
• Peer review
• Ethnography

Research bias

• Implicit bias
• Cognitive bias
• Conformity bias
• Hawthorne effect
• Availability heuristic
• Attrition bias
• Social desirability bias

Ethical considerations in research are a set of principles that guide your research designs and practices. These principles include voluntary participation, informed consent, anonymity, confidentiality, potential for harm, and results communication.

Scientists and researchers must always adhere to a certain code of conduct when collecting data from others .

These considerations protect the rights of research participants, enhance research validity , and maintain scientific integrity.

Research ethics matter for scientific integrity, human rights and dignity, and collaboration between science and society. These principles make sure that participation in studies is voluntary, informed, and safe.

Anonymity means you don’t know who the participants are, while confidentiality means you know who they are but remove identifying information from your research report. Both are important ethical considerations .

You can only guarantee anonymity by not collecting any personally identifying information—for example, names, phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses, physical characteristics, photos, or videos.

You can keep data confidential by using aggregate information in your research report, so that you only refer to groups of participants rather than individuals.

These actions are committed intentionally and can have serious consequences; research misconduct is not a simple mistake or a point of disagreement but a serious ethical failure.

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Ethical Issues in Research: Perceptions of Researchers, Research Ethics Board Members and Research Ethics Experts

Marie-josée drolet.

1 Department of Occupational Therapy (OT), Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), Trois-Rivières (Québec), Canada

Eugénie Rose-Derouin

2 Bachelor OT program, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), Trois-Rivières (Québec), Canada

Julie-Claude Leblanc

Mélanie ruest, bryn williams-jones.

3 Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec), Canada

In the context of academic research, a diversity of ethical issues, conditioned by the different roles of members within these institutions, arise. Previous studies on this topic addressed mainly the perceptions of researchers. However, to our knowledge, no studies have explored the transversal ethical issues from a wider spectrum, including other members of academic institutions as the research ethics board (REB) members, and the research ethics experts. The present study used a descriptive phenomenological approach to document the ethical issues experienced by a heterogeneous group of Canadian researchers, REB members, and research ethics experts. Data collection involved socio-demographic questionnaires and individual semi-structured interviews. Following the triangulation of different perspectives (researchers, REB members and ethics experts), emerging ethical issues were synthesized in ten units of meaning: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. This study highlighted several problematic elements that can support the identification of future solutions to resolve transversal ethical issues in research that affect the heterogeneous members of the academic community.

Introduction

Research includes a set of activities in which researchers use various structured methods to contribute to the development of knowledge, whether this knowledge is theoretical, fundamental, or applied (Drolet & Ruest, accepted ). University research is carried out in a highly competitive environment that is characterized by ever-increasing demands (i.e., on time, productivity), insufficient access to research funds, and within a market economy that values productivity and speed often to the detriment of quality or rigour – this research context creates a perfect recipe for breaches in research ethics, like research misbehaviour or misconduct (i.e., conduct that is ethically questionable or unacceptable because it contravenes the accepted norms of responsible conduct of research or compromises the respect of core ethical values that are widely held by the research community) (Drolet & Girard, 2020 ; Sieber, 2004 ). Problematic ethics and integrity issues – e.g., conflicts of interest, falsification of data, non-respect of participants’ rights, and plagiarism, to name but a few – have the potential to both undermine the credibility of research and lead to negative consequences for many stakeholders, including researchers, research assistants and personnel, research participants, academic institutions, and society as a whole (Drolet & Girard, 2020 ). It is thus evident that the academic community should be able to identify these different ethical issues in order to evaluate the nature of the risks that they pose (and for whom), and then work towards their prevention or management (i.e., education, enhanced policies and procedures, risk mitigation strategies).

In this article, we define an “ethical issue” as any situation that may compromise, in whole or in part, the respect of at least one moral value (Swisher et al., 2005 ) that is considered socially legitimate and should thus be respected. In general, ethical issues occur at three key moments or stages of the research process: (1) research design (i.e., conception, project planning), (2) research conduct (i.e., data collection, data analysis) and (3) knowledge translation or communication (e.g., publications of results, conferences, press releases) (Drolet & Ruest, accepted ). According to Sieber ( 2004 ), ethical issues in research can be classified into five categories, related to: (a) communication with participants and the community, (b) acquisition and use of research data, (c) external influence on research, (d) risks and benefits of the research, and (e) selection and use of research theories and methods. Many of these issues are related to breaches of research ethics norms, misbehaviour or research misconduct. Bruhn et al., ( 2002 ) developed a typology of misbehaviour and misconduct in academia that can be used to judge the seriousness of different cases. This typology takes into consideration two axes of reflection: (a) the origin of the situation (i.e., is it the researcher’s own fault or due to the organizational context?), and (b) the scope and severity (i.e., is this the first instance or a recurrent behaviour? What is the nature of the situation? What are the consequences, for whom, for how many people, and for which organizations?).

A previous detailed review of the international literature on ethical issues in research revealed several interesting findings (Beauchemin et al., 2021 ). Indeed, the current literature is dominated by descriptive ethics, i.e., the sharing by researchers from various disciplines of the ethical issues they have personally experienced. While such anecdotal documentation is relevant, it is insufficient because it does not provide a global view of the situation. Among the reviewed literature, empirical studies were in the minority (Table  1 ) – only about one fifth of the sample (n = 19) presented empirical research findings on ethical issues in research. The first of these studies was conducted almost 50 years ago (Hunt et al., 1984 ), with the remainder conducted in the 1990s. Eight studies were conducted in the United States (n = 8), five in Canada (n = 5), three in England (n = 3), two in Sweden (n = 2) and one in Ghana (n = 1).

Summary of Empirical Studies on Ethical Issues in Research by the year of publication

Further, the majority of studies in our sample (n = 12) collected the perceptions of a homogeneous group of participants, usually researchers (n = 14) and sometimes health professionals (n = 6). A minority of studies (n = 7) triangulated the perceptions of diverse research stakeholders (i.e., researchers and research participants, or students). To our knowledge, only one study has examined perceptions of ethical issues in research by research ethics board members (REB; Institutional Review Boards [IRB] in the USA), and none to date have documented the perceptions of research ethics experts. Finally, nine studies (n = 9) adopted a qualitative design, seven studies (n = 7) a quantitative design, and three (n = 3) a mixed-methods design.

More studies using empirical research methods are needed to better identify broader trends, to enrich discussions on the values that should govern responsible conduct of research in the academic community, and to evaluate the means by which these values can be supported in practice (Bahn, 2012 ; Beauchemin et al., 2021 ; Bruhn et al., 2002 ; Henderson et al., 2013 ; Resnik & Elliot, 2016; Sieber 2004 ). To this end, we conducted an empirical qualitative study to document the perceptions and experiences of a heterogeneous group of Canadian researchers, REB members, and research ethics experts, to answer the following broad question: What are the ethical issues in research?

Research Methods

Research design.

A qualitative research approach involving individual semi-structured interviews was used to systematically document ethical issues (De Poy & Gitlin, 2010 ; Hammell et al., 2000 ). Specifically, a descriptive phenomenological approach inspired by the philosophy of Husserl was used (Husserl, 1970 , 1999 ), as it is recommended for documenting the perceptions of ethical issues raised by various practices (Hunt & Carnavale, 2011 ).

Ethical considerations

The principal investigator obtained ethics approval for this project from the Research Ethics Board of the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). All members of the research team signed a confidentiality agreement, and research participants signed the consent form after reading an information letter explaining the nature of the research project.

Sampling and recruitment

As indicated above, three types of participants were sought: (1) researchers from different academic disciplines conducting research (i.e., theoretical, fundamental or empirical) in Canadian universities; (2) REB members working in Canadian organizations responsible for the ethical review, oversight or regulation of research; and (3) research ethics experts, i.e., academics or ethicists who teach research ethics, conduct research in research ethics, or are scholars who have acquired a specialization in research ethics. To be included in the study, participants had to work in Canada, speak and understand English or French, and be willing to participate in the study. Following Thomas and Polio’s (2002) recommendation to recruit between six and twelve participants (for a homogeneous sample) to ensure data saturation, for our heterogeneous sample, we aimed to recruit approximately twelve participants in order to obtain data saturation. Having used this method several times in related projects in professional ethics, data saturation is usually achieved with 10 to 15 participants (Drolet & Goulet, 2018 ; Drolet & Girard, 2020 ; Drolet et al., 2020 ). From experience, larger samples only serve to increase the degree of data saturation, especially in heterogeneous samples (Drolet et al., 2017 , 2019 ; Drolet & Maclure, 2016 ).

Purposive sampling facilitated the identification of participants relevant to documenting the phenomenon in question (Fortin, 2010 ). To ensure a rich and most complete representation of perceptions, we sought participants with varied and complementary characteristics with regards to the social roles they occupy in research practice (Drolet & Girard, 2020 ). A triangulation of sources was used for the recruitment (Bogdan & Biklen, 2006 ). The websites of Canadian universities and Canadian health institution REBs, as well as those of major Canadian granting agencies (i.e., the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Fonds de recherche du Quebec), were searched to identify individuals who might be interested in participating in the study. Further, people known by the research team for their knowledge and sensitivity to ethical issues in research were asked to participate. Research participants were also asked to suggest other individuals who met the study criteria.

Data Collection

Two tools were used for data collecton: (a) a socio-demographic questionnaire, and (b) a semi-structured individual interview guide. English and French versions of these two documents were used and made available, depending on participant preferences. In addition, although the interview guide contained the same questions, they were adapted to participants’ specific roles (i.e., researcher, REB member, research ethics expert). When contacted by email by the research assistant, participants were asked to confirm under which role they wished to participate (because some participants might have multiple, overlapping responsibilities) and they were sent the appropriate interview guide.

The interview guides each had two parts: an introduction and a section on ethical issues. The introduction consisted of general questions to put the participant at ease (i.e., “Tell me what a typical day at work is like for you”). The section on ethical issues was designed to capture the participant’s perceptions through questions such as: “Tell me three stories you have experienced at work that involve an ethical issue?” and “Do you feel that your organization is doing enough to address, manage, and resolve ethical issues in your work?”. Although some interviews were conducted in person, the majority were conducted by videoconference to promote accessibility and because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Interviews were digitally recorded so that the verbatim could be transcribed in full, and varied between 40 and 120 min in duration, with an average of 90 min. Research assistants conducted the interviews and transcribed the verbatim.

Data Analysis

The socio-demographic questionnaires were subjected to simple descriptive statistical analyses (i.e., means and totals), and the semi-structured interviews were subjected to qualitative analysis. The steps proposed by Giorgi ( 1997 ) for a Husserlian phenomenological reduction of the data were used. After collecting, recording, and transcribing the interviews, all verbatim were analyzed by at least two analysts: a research assistant (2nd author of this article) and the principal investigator (1st author) or a postdoctoral fellow (3rd author). The repeated reading of the verbatim allowed the first analyst to write a synopsis, i.e., an initial extraction of units of meaning. The second analyst then read the synopses, which were commented and improved if necessary. Agreement between analysts allowed the final drafting of the interview synopses, which were then analyzed by three analysts to generate and organize the units of meaning that emerged from the qualitative data.

Participants

Sixteen individuals (n = 16) participated in the study, of whom nine (9) identified as female and seven (7) as male (Table  2 ). Participants ranged in age from 22 to 72 years, with a mean age of 47.5 years. Participants had between one (1) and 26 years of experience in the research setting, with an average of 14.3 years of experience. Participants held a variety of roles, including: REB members (n = 11), researchers (n = 10), research ethics experts (n = 4), and research assistant (n = 1). As mentioned previously, seven (7) participants held more than one role, i.e., REB member, research ethics expert, and researcher. The majority (87.5%) of participants were working in Quebec, with the remaining working in other Canadian provinces. Although all participants considered themselves to be francophone, one quarter (n = 4) identified themselves as belonging to a cultural minority group.

Description of Participants

With respect to their academic background, most participants (n = 9) had a PhD, three (3) had a post-doctorate, two (2) had a master’s degree, and two (2) had a bachelor’s degree. Participants came from a variety of disciplines: nine (9) had a specialty in the humanities or social sciences, four (4) in the health sciences and three (3) in the natural sciences. In terms of their knowledge of ethics, five (5) participants reported having taken one university course entirely dedicated to ethics, four (4) reported having taken several university courses entirely dedicated to ethics, three (3) had a university degree dedicated to ethics, while two (2) only had a few hours or days of training in ethics and two (2) reported having no knowledge of ethics.

Ethical issues

As Fig.  1 illustrates, ten units of meaning emerge from the data analysis, namely: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. To illustrate the results, excerpts from verbatim interviews are presented in the following sub-sections. Most of the excerpts have been translated into English as the majority of interviews were conducted with French-speaking participants.

Ethical issues in research according to the participants

Research Integrity

The research environment is highly competitive and performance-based. Several participants, in particular researchers and research ethics experts, felt that this environment can lead both researchers and research teams to engage in unethical behaviour that reflects a lack of research integrity. For example, as some participants indicated, competition for grants and scientific publications is sometimes so intense that researchers falsify research results or plagiarize from colleagues to achieve their goals.

Some people will lie or exaggerate their research findings in order to get funding. Then, you see it afterwards, you realize: “ah well, it didn’t work, but they exaggerated what they found and what they did” (participant 14). Another problem in research is the identification of authors when there is a publication. Very often, there are authors who don’t even know what the publication is about and that their name is on it. (…) The time that it surprised me the most was just a few months ago when I saw someone I knew who applied for a teaching position. He got it I was super happy for him. Then I looked at his publications and … there was one that caught my attention much more than the others, because I was in it and I didn’t know what that publication was. I was the second author of a publication that I had never read (participant 14). I saw a colleague who had plagiarized another colleague. [When the colleague] found out about it, he complained. So, plagiarism is a serious [ethical breach]. I would also say that there is a certain amount of competition in the university faculties, especially for grants (…). There are people who want to win at all costs or get as much as possible. They are not necessarily going to consider their colleagues. They don’t have much of a collegial spirit (participant 10).

These examples of research misbehaviour or misconduct are sometimes due to or associated with situations of conflicts of interest, which may be poorly managed by certain researchers or research teams, as noted by many participants.

Conflict of interest

The actors and institutions involved in research have diverse interests, like all humans and institutions. As noted in Chap. 7 of the Canadian Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans (TCPS2, 2018),

“researchers and research students hold trust relationships, either directly or indirectly, with participants, research sponsors, institutions, their professional bodies and society. These trust relationships can be put at risk by conflicts of interest that may compromise independence, objectivity or ethical duties of loyalty. Although the potential for such conflicts has always existed, pressures on researchers (i.e., to delay or withhold dissemination of research outcomes or to use inappropriate recruitment strategies) heighten concerns that conflicts of interest may affect ethical behaviour” (p. 92).

The sources of these conflicts are varied and can include interpersonal conflicts, financial partnerships, third-party pressures, academic or economic interests, a researcher holding multiple roles within an institution, or any other incentive that may compromise a researcher’s independence, integrity, and neutrality (TCPS2, 2018). While it is not possible to eliminate all conflicts of interest, it is important to manage them properly and to avoid temptations to behave unethically.

Ethical temptations correspond to situations in which people are tempted to prioritize their own interests to the detriment of the ethical goods that should, in their own context, govern their actions (Swisher et al., 2005 ). In the case of researchers, this refers to situations that undermine independence, integrity, neutrality, or even the set of principles that govern research ethics (TCPS2, 2018) or the responsible conduct of research. According to study participants, these types of ethical issues frequently occur in research. Many participants, especially researchers and REB members, reported that conflicts of interest can arise when members of an organization make decisions to obtain large financial rewards or to increase their academic profile, often at the expense of the interests of members of their research team, research participants, or even the populations affected by their research.

A company that puts money into making its drug work wants its drug to work. So, homeopathy is a good example, because there are not really any consequences of homeopathy, there are not very many side effects, because there are no effects at all. So, it’s not dangerous, but it’s not a good treatment either. But some people will want to make it work. And that’s a big issue when you’re sitting at a table and there are eight researchers, and there are two or three who are like that, and then there are four others who are neutral, and I say to myself, this is not science. I think that this is a very big ethical issue (participant 14). There are also times in some research where there will be more links with pharmaceutical companies. Obviously, there are then large amounts of money that will be very interesting for the health-care institutions because they still receive money for clinical trials. They’re still getting some compensation because its time consuming for the people involved and all that. The pharmaceutical companies have money, so they will compensate, and that is sometimes interesting for the institutions, and since we are a bit caught up in this, in the sense that we have no choice but to accept it. (…) It may not be the best research in the world, there may be a lot of side effects due to the drugs, but it’s good to accept it, we’re going to be part of the clinical trial (participant 3). It is integrity, what we believe should be done or said. Often by the pressure of the environment, integrity is in tension with the pressures of the environment, so it takes resistance, it takes courage in research. (…) There were all the debates there about the problems of research that was funded and then the companies kept control over what was written. That was really troubling for a lot of researchers (participant 5).

Further, these situations sometimes have negative consequences for research participants as reported by some participants.

Respect for research participants

Many research projects, whether they are psychosocial or biomedical in nature, involve human participants. Relationships between the members of research teams and their research participants raise ethical issues that can be complex. Research projects must always be designed to respect the rights and interests of research participants, and not just those of researchers. However, participants in our study – i.e., REB members, researchers, and research ethics experts – noted that some research teams seem to put their own interests ahead of those of research participants. They also emphasized the importance of ensuring the respect, well-being, and safety of research participants. The ethical issues related to this unit of meaning are: respect for free, informed and ongoing consent of research participants; respect for and the well-being of participants; data protection and confidentiality; over-solicitation of participants; ownership of the data collected on participants; the sometimes high cost of scientific innovations and their accessibility; balance between the social benefits of research and the risks to participants (particularly in terms of safety); balance between collective well-being (development of knowledge) and the individual rights of participants; exploitation of participants; paternalism when working with populations in vulnerable situations; and the social acceptability of certain types of research. The following excerpts present some of these issues.

Where it disturbs me ethically is in the medical field – because it’s more in the medical field that we’re going to see this – when consent forms are presented to patients to solicit them as participants, and then [these forms] have an average of 40 pages. That annoys me. When they say that it has to be easy to understand and all that, adapted to the language, and then the hyper-technical language plus there are 40 pages to read, I don’t understand how you’re going to get informed consent after reading 40 pages. (…) For me, it doesn’t work. I read them to evaluate them and I have a certain level of education and experience in ethics, and there are times when I don’t understand anything (participant 2). There is a lot of pressure from researchers who want to recruit research participants (…). The idea that when you enter a health care institution, you become a potential research participant, when you say “yes to a research, you check yes to all research”, then everyone can ask you. I think that researchers really have this fantasy of saying to themselves: “as soon as people walk through the door of our institution, they become potential participants with whom we can communicate and get them involved in all projects”. There’s a kind of idea that, yes, it can be done, but it has to be somewhat supervised to avoid over-solicitation (…). Researchers are very interested in facilitating recruitment and making it more fluid, but perhaps to the detriment of confidentiality, privacy, and respect; sometimes that’s what it is, to think about what type of data you’re going to have in your bank of potential participants? Is it just name and phone number or are you getting into more sensitive information? (participant 9).

In addition, one participant reported that their university does not provide the resources required to respect the confidentiality of research participants.

The issue is as follows: researchers, of course, commit to protecting data with passwords and all that, but we realize that in practice, it is more difficult. It is not always as protected as one might think, because professor-researchers will run out of space. Will the universities make rooms available to researchers, places where they can store these things, especially when they have paper documentation, and is there indeed a guarantee of confidentiality? Some researchers have told me: “Listen; there are even filing cabinets in the corridors”. So, that certainly poses a concrete challenge. How do we go about challenging the administrative authorities? Tell them it’s all very well to have an ethics committee, but you have to help us, you also have to make sure that the necessary infrastructures are in place so that what we are proposing is really put into practice (participant 4).

If the relationships with research participants are likely to raise ethical issues, so too are the relationships with students, notably research assistants. On this topic, several participants discussed the lack of supervision or recognition offered to research assistants by researchers as well as the power imbalances between members of the research team.

Lack of Supervision and Power Imbalances

Many research teams are composed not only of researchers, but also of students who work as research assistants. The relationship between research assistants and other members of research teams can sometimes be problematic and raise ethical issues, particularly because of the inevitable power asymmetries. In the context of this study, several participants – including a research assistant, REB members, and researchers – discussed the lack of supervision or recognition of the work carried out by students, psychological pressure, and the more or less well-founded promises that are sometimes made to students. Participants also mentioned the exploitation of students by certain research teams, which manifest when students are inadequately paid, i.e., not reflective of the number of hours actually worked, not a fair wage, or even a wage at all.

[As a research assistant], it was more of a feeling of distress that I felt then because I didn’t know what to do. (…) I was supposed to get coaching or be supported, but I didn’t get anything in the end. It was like, “fix it by yourself”. (…) All research assistants were supposed to be supervised, but in practice they were not (participant 1). Very often, we have a master’s or doctoral student that we put on a subject and we consider that the project will be well done, while the student is learning. So, it happens that the student will do a lot of work and then we realize that the work is poorly done, and it is not necessarily the student’s fault. He wasn’t necessarily well supervised. There are directors who have 25 students, and they just don’t supervise them (participant 14). I think it’s really the power relationship. I thought to myself, how I saw my doctorate, the beginning of my research career, I really wanted to be in that laboratory, but they are the ones who are going to accept me or not, so what do I do to be accepted? I finally accept their conditions [which was to work for free]. If these are the conditions that are required to enter this lab, I want to go there. So, what do I do, well I accepted. It doesn’t make sense, but I tell myself that I’m still privileged, because I don’t have so many financial worries, one more reason to work for free, even though it doesn’t make sense (participant 1). In research, we have research assistants. (…). The fact of using people… so that’s it, you have to take into account where they are, respect them, but at the same time they have to show that they are there for the research. In English, we say “carry” or take care of people. With research assistants, this is often a problem that I have observed: for grant machines, the person is the last to be found there. Researchers, who will take, use student data, without giving them the recognition for it (participant 5). The problem at our university is that they reserve funding for Canadian students. The doctoral clientele in my field is mostly foreign students. So, our students are poorly funded. I saw one student end up in the shelter, in a situation of poverty. It ended very badly for him because he lacked financial resources. Once you get into that dynamic, it’s very hard to get out. I was made aware of it because the director at the time had taken him under her wing and wanted to try to find a way to get him out of it. So, most of my students didn’t get funded (participant 16). There I wrote “manipulation”, but it’s kind of all promises all the time. I, for example, was promised a lot of advancement, like when I got into the lab as a graduate student, it was said that I had an interest in [this particular area of research]. I think there are a lot of graduate students who must have gone through that, but it is like, “Well, your CV has to be really good, if you want to do a lot of things and big things. If you do this, if you do this research contract, the next year you could be the coordinator of this part of the lab and supervise this person, get more contracts, be paid more. Let’s say: you’ll be invited to go to this conference, this big event”. They were always dangling something, but you have to do that first to get there. But now, when you’ve done that, you have to do this business. It’s like a bit of manipulation, I think. That was very hard to know who is telling the truth and who is not (participant 1).

These ethical issues have significant negative consequences for students. Indeed, they sometimes find themselves at the mercy of researchers, for whom they work, struggling to be recognized and included as authors of an article, for example, or to receive the salary that they are due. For their part, researchers also sometimes find themselves trapped in research structures that can negatively affect their well-being. As many participants reported, researchers work in organizations that set very high productivity standards and in highly competitive contexts, all within a general culture characterized by individualism.

Individualism and performance

Participants, especially researchers, discussed the culture of individualism and performance that characterizes the academic environment. In glorifying excellence, some universities value performance and productivity, often at the expense of psychological well-being and work-life balance (i.e., work overload and burnout). Participants noted that there are ethical silences in their organizations on this issue, and that the culture of individualism and performance is not challenged for fear of retribution or simply to survive, i.e., to perform as expected. Participants felt that this culture can have a significant negative impact on the quality of the research conducted, as research teams try to maximize the quantity of their work (instead of quality) in a highly competitive context, which is then exacerbated by a lack of resources and support, and where everything must be done too quickly.

The work-life balance with the professional ethics related to work in a context where you have too much and you have to do a lot, it is difficult to balance all that and there is a lot of pressure to perform. If you don’t produce enough, that’s it; after that, you can’t get any more funds, so that puts pressure on you to do more and more and more (participant 3). There is a culture, I don’t know where it comes from, and that is extremely bureaucratic. If you dare to raise something, you’re going to have many, many problems. They’re going to make you understand it. So, I don’t talk. It is better: your life will be easier. I think there are times when you have to talk (…) because there are going to be irreparable consequences. (…) I’m not talking about a climate of terror, because that’s exaggerated, it’s not true, people are not afraid. But people close their office door and say nothing because it’s going to make their work impossible and they’re not going to lose their job, they’re not going to lose money, but researchers need time to be focused, so they close their office door and say nothing (participant 16).

Researchers must produce more and more, and they feel little support in terms of how to do such production, ethically, and how much exactly they are expected to produce. As this participant reports, the expectation is an unspoken rule: more is always better.

It’s sometimes the lack of a clear line on what the expectations are as a researcher, like, “ah, we don’t have any specific expectations, but produce, produce, produce, produce.” So, in that context, it’s hard to be able to put the line precisely: “have I done enough for my work?” (participant 3).

Inadequate ethical Guidance

While the productivity expectation is not clear, some participants – including researchers, research ethics experts, and REB members – also felt that the ethical expectations of some REBs were unclear. The issue of the inadequate ethical guidance of research includes the administrative mechanisms to ensure that research projects respect the principles of research ethics. According to those participants, the forms required for both researchers and REB members are increasingly long and numerous, and one participant noted that the standards to be met are sometimes outdated and disconnected from the reality of the field. Multicentre ethics review (by several REBs) was also critiqued by a participant as an inefficient method that encumbers the processes for reviewing research projects. Bureaucratization imposes an ever-increasing number of forms and ethics guidelines that actually hinder researchers’ ethical reflection on the issues at stake, leading the ethics review process to be perceived as purely bureaucratic in nature.

The ethical dimension and the ethical review of projects have become increasingly bureaucratized. (…) When I first started working (…) it was less bureaucratic, less strict then. I would say [there are now] tons of forms to fill out. Of course, we can’t do without it, it’s one of the ways of marking out ethics and ensuring that there are ethical considerations in research, but I wonder if it hasn’t become too bureaucratized, so that it’s become a kind of technical reflex to fill out these forms, and I don’t know if people really do ethical reflection as such anymore (participant 10). The fundamental structural issue, I would say, is the mismatch between the normative requirements and the real risks posed by the research, i.e., we have many, many requirements to meet; we have very long forms to fill out but the research projects we evaluate often pose few risks (participant 8). People [in vulnerable situations] were previously unable to participate because of overly strict research ethics rules that were to protect them, but in the end [these rules] did not protect them. There was a perverse effect, because in the end there was very little research done with these people and that’s why we have very few results, very little evidence [to support practices with these populations] so it didn’t improve the quality of services. (…) We all understand that we have to be careful with that, but when the research is not too risky, we say to ourselves that it would be good because for once a researcher who is interested in that population, because it is not a very popular population, it would be interesting to have results, but often we are blocked by the norms, and then we can’t accept [the project] (participant 2).

Moreover, as one participant noted, accessing ethics training can be a challenge.

There is no course on research ethics. […] Then, I find that it’s boring because you go through university and you come to do your research and you know how to do quantitative and qualitative research, but all the research ethics, where do you get this? I don’t really know (participant 13).

Yet, such training could provide relevant tools to resolve, to some extent, the ethical issues that commonly arise in research. That said, and as noted by many participants, many ethical issues in research are related to social injustices over which research actors have little influence.

Social Injustices

For many participants, notably researchers, the issues that concern social injustices are those related to power asymmetries, stigma, or issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion, i.e., social injustices related to people’s identities (Blais & Drolet, 2022 ). Participants reported experiencing or witnessing discrimination from peers, administration, or lab managers. Such oppression is sometimes cross-sectional and related to a person’s age, cultural background, gender or social status.

I have my African colleague who was quite successful when he arrived but had a backlash from colleagues in the department. I think it’s unconscious, nobody is overtly racist. But I have a young person right now who is the same, who has the same success, who got exactly the same early career award and I don’t see the same backlash. He’s just as happy with what he’s doing. It’s normal, they’re young and they have a lot of success starting out. So, I think there is discrimination. Is it because he is African? Is it because he is black? I think it’s on a subconscious level (participant 16).

Social injustices were experienced or reported by many participants, and included issues related to difficulties in obtaining grants or disseminating research results in one’s native language (i.e., even when there is official bilingualism) or being considered credible and fundable in research when one researcher is a woman.

If you do international research, there are things you can’t talk about (…). It is really a barrier to research to not be able to (…) address this question [i.e. the question of inequalities between men and women]. Women’s inequality is going to be addressed [but not within the country where the research takes place as if this inequality exists elsewhere but not here]. There are a lot of women working on inequality issues, doing work and it’s funny because I was talking to a young woman who works at Cairo University and she said to me: “Listen, I saw what you had written, you’re right. I’m willing to work on this but guarantee me a position at your university with a ticket to go”. So yes, there are still many barriers [for women in research] (participant 16).

Because of the varied contextual characteristics that intervene in their occurrence, these social injustices are also related to distributive injustices, as discussed by many participants.

Distributive Injustices

Although there are several views of distributive justice, a classical definition such as that of Aristotle ( 2012 ), describes distributive justice as consisting in distributing honours, wealth, and other social resources or benefits among the members of a community in proportion to their alleged merit. Justice, then, is about determining an equitable distribution of common goods. Contemporary theories of distributive justice are numerous and varied. Indeed, many authors (e.g., Fraser 2011 ; Mills, 2017 ; Sen, 2011 ; Young, 2011 ) have, since Rawls ( 1971 ), proposed different visions of how social burdens and benefits should be shared within a community to ensure equal respect, fairness, and distribution. In our study, what emerges from participants’ narratives is a definite concern for this type of justice. Women researchers, francophone researchers, early career researchers or researchers belonging to racialized groups all discussed inequities in the distribution of research grants and awards, and the extra work they need to do to somehow prove their worth. These inequities are related to how granting agencies determine which projects will be funded.

These situations make me work 2–3 times harder to prove myself and to show people in power that I have a place as a woman in research (participant 12). Number one: it’s conservative thinking. The older ones control what comes in. So, the younger people have to adapt or they don’t get funded (participant 14).

Whether it is discrimination against stigmatized or marginalized populations or interest in certain hot topics, granting agencies judge research projects according to criteria that are sometimes questionable, according to those participants. Faced with difficulties in obtaining funding for their projects, several strategies – some of which are unethical – are used by researchers in order to cope with these situations.

Sometimes there are subjects that everyone goes to, such as nanotechnology (…), artificial intelligence or (…) the therapeutic use of cannabis, which are very fashionable, and this is sometimes to the detriment of other research that is just as relevant, but which is (…), less sexy, less in the spirit of the time. (…) Sometimes this can lead to inequities in the funding of certain research sectors (participant 9). When we use our funds, we get them given to us, we pretty much say what we think we’re going to do with them, but things change… So, when these things change, sometimes it’s an ethical decision, but by force of circumstances I’m obliged to change the project a little bit (…). Is it ethical to make these changes or should I just let the money go because I couldn’t use it the way I said I would? (participant 3).

Moreover, these distributional injustices are not only linked to social injustices, but also epistemic injustices. Indeed, the way in which research honours and grants are distributed within the academic community depends on the epistemic authority of the researchers, which seems to vary notably according to their language of use, their age or their gender, but also to the research design used (inductive versus deductive), their decision to use (or not use) animals in research, or to conduct activist research.

Epistemic injustices

The philosopher Fricker ( 2007 ) conceptualized the notions of epistemic justice and injustice. Epistemic injustice refers to a form of social inequality that manifests itself in the access, recognition, and production of knowledge as well as the various forms of ignorance that arise (Godrie & Dos Santos, 2017 ). Addressing epistemic injustice necessitates acknowledging the iniquitous wrongs suffered by certain groups of socially stigmatized individuals who have been excluded from knowledge, thus limiting their abilities to interpret, understand, or be heard and account for their experiences. In this study, epistemic injustices were experienced or reported by some participants, notably those related to difficulties in obtaining grants or disseminating research results in one’s native language (i.e., even when there is official bilingualism) or being considered credible and fundable in research when a researcher is a woman or an early career researcher.

I have never sent a grant application to the federal government in English. I have always done it in French, even though I know that when you receive the review, you can see that reviewers didn’t understand anything because they are English-speaking. I didn’t want to get in the boat. It’s not my job to translate, because let’s be honest, I’m not as good in English as I am in French. So, I do them in my first language, which is the language I’m most used to. Then, technically at the administrative level, they are supposed to be able to do it, but they are not good in French. (…) Then, it’s a very big Canadian ethical issue, because basically there are technically two official languages, but Canada is not a bilingual country, it’s a country with two languages, either one or the other. (…) So I was not funded (participant 14).

Researchers who use inductive (or qualitative) methods observed that their projects are sometimes less well reviewed or understood, while research that adopts a hypothetical-deductive (or quantitative) or mixed methods design is better perceived, considered more credible and therefore more easily funded. Of course, regardless of whether a research project adopts an inductive, deductive or mixed-methods scientific design, or whether it deals with qualitative or quantitative data, it must respect a set of scientific criteria. A research project should achieve its objectives by using proven methods that, in the case of inductive research, are credible, reliable, and transferable or, in the case of deductive research, generalizable, objective, representative, and valid (Drolet & Ruest, accepted ). Participants discussing these issues noted that researchers who adopt a qualitative design or those who question the relevance of animal experimentation or are not militant have sometimes been unfairly devalued in their epistemic authority.

There is a mini war between quantitative versus qualitative methods, which I think is silly because science is a method. If you apply the method well, it doesn’t matter what the field is, it’s done well and it’s perfect ” (participant 14). There is also the issue of the place of animals in our lives, because for me, ethics is human ethics, but also animal ethics. Then, there is a great evolution in society on the role of the animal… with the new law that came out in Quebec on the fact that animals are sensitive beings. Then, with the rise of the vegan movement, [we must ask ourselves]: “Do animals still have a place in research?” That’s a big question and it also means that there are practices that need to evolve, but sometimes there’s a disconnection between what’s expected by research ethics boards versus what’s expected in the field (participant 15). In research today, we have more and more research that is militant from an ideological point of view. And so, we have researchers, because they defend values that seem important to them, we’ll talk for example about the fight for equality and social justice. They have pressure to defend a form of moral truth and have the impression that everyone thinks like them or should do so, because they are defending a moral truth. This is something that we see more and more, namely the lack of distance between ideology and science (participant 8).

The combination or intersectionality of these inequities, which seems to be characterized by a lack of ethical support and guidance, is experienced in the highly competitive and individualistic context of research; it provides therefore the perfect recipe for researchers to experience ethical distress.

Ethical distress

The concept of “ethical distress” refers to situations in which people know what they should do to act ethically, but encounter barriers, generally of an organizational or systemic nature, limiting their power to act according to their moral or ethical values (Drolet & Ruest, 2021 ; Jameton, 1984 ; Swisher et al., 2005 ). People then run the risk of finding themselves in a situation where they do not act as their ethical conscience dictates, which in the long term has the potential for exhaustion and distress. The examples reported by participants in this study point to the fact that researchers in particular may be experiencing significant ethical distress. This distress takes place in a context of extreme competition, constant injunctions to perform, and where administrative demands are increasingly numerous and complex to complete, while paradoxically, they lack the time to accomplish all their tasks and responsibilities. Added to these demands are a lack of resources (human, ethical, and financial), a lack of support and recognition, and interpersonal conflicts.

We are in an environment, an elite one, you are part of it, you know what it is: “publish or perish” is the motto. Grants, there is a high level of performance required, to do a lot, to publish, to supervise students, to supervise them well, so yes, it is clear that we are in an environment that is conducive to distress. (…). Overwork, definitely, can lead to distress and eventually to exhaustion. When you know that you should take the time to read the projects before sharing them, but you don’t have the time to do that because you have eight that came in the same day, and then you have others waiting… Then someone rings a bell and says: “ah but there, the protocol is a bit incomplete”. Oh yes, look at that, you’re right. You make up for it, but at the same time it’s a bit because we’re in a hurry, we don’t necessarily have the resources or are able to take the time to do things well from the start, we have to make up for it later. So yes, it can cause distress (participant 9). My organization wanted me to apply in English, and I said no, and everyone in the administration wanted me to apply in English, and I always said no. Some people said: “Listen, I give you the choice”, then some people said: “Listen, I agree with you, but if you’re not [submitting] in English, you won’t be funded”. Then the fact that I am young too, because very often they will look at the CV, they will not look at the project: “ah, his CV is not impressive, we will not finance him”. This is complete nonsense. The person is capable of doing the project, the project is fabulous: we fund the project. So, that happened, organizational barriers: that happened a lot. I was not eligible for Quebec research funds (…). I had big organizational barriers unfortunately (participant 14). At the time of my promotion, some colleagues were not happy with the type of research I was conducting. I learned – you learn this over time when you become friends with people after you enter the university – that someone was against me. He had another candidate in mind, and he was angry about the selection. I was under pressure for the first three years until my contract was renewed. I almost quit at one point, but another colleague told me, “No, stay, nothing will happen”. Nothing happened, but these issues kept me awake at night (participant 16).

This difficult context for many researchers affects not only the conduct of their own research, but also their participation in research. We faced this problem in our study, despite the use of multiple recruitment methods, including more than 200 emails – of which 191 were individual solicitations – sent to potential participants by the two research assistants. REB members and organizations overseeing or supporting research (n = 17) were also approached to see if some of their employees would consider participating. While it was relatively easy to recruit REB members and research ethics experts, our team received a high number of non-responses to emails (n = 175) and some refusals (n = 5), especially by researchers. The reasons given by those who replied were threefold: (a) fear of being easily identified should they take part in the research, (b) being overloaded and lacking time, and (c) the intrusive aspect of certain questions (i.e., “Have you experienced a burnout episode? If so, have you been followed up medically or psychologically?”). In light of these difficulties and concerns, some questions in the socio-demographic questionnaire were removed or modified. Talking about burnout in research remains a taboo for many researchers, which paradoxically can only contribute to the unresolved problem of unhealthy research environments.

Returning to the research question and objective

The question that prompted this research was: What are the ethical issues in research? The purpose of the study was to describe these issues from the perspective of researchers (from different disciplines), research ethics board (REB) members, and research ethics experts. The previous section provided a detailed portrait of the ethical issues experienced by different research stakeholders: these issues are numerous, diverse and were recounted by a range of stakeholders.

The results of the study are generally consistent with the literature. For example, as in our study, the literature discusses the lack of research integrity on the part of some researchers (Al-Hidabi et al., 2018 ; Swazey et al., 1993 ), the numerous conflicts of interest experienced in research (Williams-Jones et al., 2013 ), the issues of recruiting and obtaining the free and informed consent of research participants (Provencher et al., 2014 ; Keogh & Daly, 2009 ), the sometimes difficult relations between researchers and REBs (Drolet & Girard, 2020 ), the epistemological issues experienced in research (Drolet & Ruest, accepted; Sieber 2004 ), as well as the harmful academic context in which researchers evolve, insofar as this is linked to a culture of performance, an overload of work in a context of accountability (Berg & Seeber, 2016 ; FQPPU; 2019 ) that is conducive to ethical distress and even burnout.

If the results of the study are generally in line with those of previous publications on the subject, our findings also bring new elements to the discussion while complementing those already documented. In particular, our results highlight the role of systemic injustices – be they social, distributive or epistemic – within the environments in which research is carried out, at least in Canada. To summarize, the results of our study point to the fact that the relationships between researchers and research participants are likely still to raise worrying ethical issues, despite widely accepted research ethics norms and institutionalized review processes. Further, the context in which research is carried out is not only conducive to breaches of ethical norms and instances of misbehaviour or misconduct, but also likely to be significantly detrimental to the health and well-being of researchers, as well as research assistants. Another element that our research also highlighted is the instrumentalization and even exploitation of students and research assistants, which is another important and worrying social injustice given the inevitable power imbalances between students and researchers.

Moreover, in a context in which ethical issues are often discussed from a micro perspective, our study helps shed light on both the micro- and macro-level ethical dimensions of research (Bronfenbrenner, 1979 ; Glaser 1994 ). However, given that ethical issues in research are not only diverse, but also and above all complex, a broader perspective that encompasses the interplay between the micro and macro dimensions can enable a better understanding of these issues and thereby support the identification of the multiple factors that may be at their origin. Triangulating the perspectives of researchers with those of REB members and research ethics experts enabled us to bring these elements to light, and thus to step back from and critique the way that research is currently conducted. To this end, attention to socio-political elements such as the performance culture in academia or how research funds are distributed, and according to what explicit and implicit criteria, can contribute to identifying the sources of the ethical issues described above.

Contemporary culture characterized by the social acceleration

The German sociologist and philosopher Rosa (2010) argues that late modernity – that is, the period between the 1980s and today – is characterized by a phenomenon of social acceleration that causes various forms of alienation in our relationship to time, space, actions, things, others and ourselves. Rosa distinguishes three types of acceleration: technical acceleration , the acceleration of social changes and the acceleration of the rhythm of life . According to Rosa, social acceleration is the main problem of late modernity, in that the invisible social norm of doing more and faster to supposedly save time operates unchallenged at all levels of individual and collective life, as well as organizational and social life. Although we all, researchers and non-researchers alike, perceive this unspoken pressure to be ever more productive, the process of social acceleration as a new invisible social norm is our blind spot, a kind of tyrant over which we have little control. This conceptualization of the contemporary culture can help us to understand the context in which research is conducted (like other professional practices). To this end, Berg & Seeber ( 2016 ) invite faculty researchers to slow down in order to better reflect and, in the process, take care of their health and their relationships with their colleagues and students. Many women professors encourage their fellow researchers, especially young women researchers, to learn to “say No” in order to protect their mental and physical health and to remain in their academic careers (Allaire & Descheneux, 2022 ). These authors also remind us of the relevance of Kahneman’s ( 2012 ) work which demonstrates that it takes time to think analytically, thoroughly, and logically. Conversely, thinking quickly exposes humans to cognitive and implicit biases that then lead to errors in thinking (e.g., in the analysis of one’s own research data or in the evaluation of grant applications or student curriculum vitae). The phenomenon of social acceleration, which pushes the researcher to think faster and faster, is likely to lead to unethical bad science that can potentially harm humankind. In sum, Rosa’s invitation to contemporary critical theorists to seriously consider the problem of social acceleration is particularly insightful to better understand the ethical issues of research. It provides a lens through which to view the toxic context in which research is conducted today, and one that was shared by the participants in our study.

Clark & Sousa ( 2022 ) note, it is important that other criteria than the volume of researchers’ contributions be valued in research, notably quality. Ultimately, it is the value of the knowledge produced and its influence on the concrete lives of humans and other living beings that matters, not the quantity of publications. An interesting articulation of this view in research governance is seen in a change in practice by Australia’s national health research funder: they now restrict researchers to listing on their curriculum vitae only the top ten publications from the past ten years (rather than all of their publications), in order to evaluate the quality of contributions rather than their quantity. To create environments conducive to the development of quality research, it is important to challenge the phenomenon of social acceleration, which insidiously imposes a quantitative normativity that is both alienating and detrimental to the quality and ethical conduct of research. Based on our experience, we observe that the social norm of acceleration actively disfavours the conduct of empirical research on ethics in research. The fact is that researchers are so busy that it is almost impossible for them to find time to participate in such studies. Further, operating in highly competitive environments, while trying to respect the values and ethical principles of research, creates ethical paradoxes for members of the research community. According to Malherbe ( 1999 ), an ethical paradox is a situation where an individual is confronted by contradictory injunctions (i.e., do more, faster, and better). And eventually, ethical paradoxes lead individuals to situations of distress and burnout, or even to ethical failures (i.e., misbehaviour or misconduct) in the face of the impossibility of responding to contradictory injunctions.

Strengths and Limitations of the study

The triangulation of perceptions and experiences of different actors involved in research is a strength of our study. While there are many studies on the experiences of researchers, rarely are members of REBs and experts in research ethics given the space to discuss their views of what are ethical issues. Giving each of these stakeholders a voice and comparing their different points of view helped shed a different and complementary light on the ethical issues that occur in research. That said, it would have been helpful to also give more space to issues experienced by students or research assistants, as the relationships between researchers and research assistants are at times very worrying, as noted by a participant, and much work still needs to be done to eliminate the exploitative situations that seem to prevail in certain research settings. In addition, no Indigenous or gender diverse researchers participated in the study. Given the ethical issues and systemic injustices that many people from these groups face in Canada (Drolet & Goulet, 2018 ; Nicole & Drolet, in press ), research that gives voice to these researchers would be relevant and contribute to knowledge development, and hopefully also to change in research culture.

Further, although most of the ethical issues discussed in this article may be transferable to the realities experienced by researchers in other countries, the epistemic injustice reported by Francophone researchers who persist in doing research in French in Canada – which is an officially bilingual country but in practice is predominantly English – is likely specific to the Canadian reality. In addition, and as mentioned above, recruitment proved exceedingly difficult, particularly amongst researchers. Despite this difficulty, we obtained data saturation for all but two themes – i.e., exploitation of students and ethical issues of research that uses animals. It follows that further empirical research is needed to improve our understanding of these specific issues, as they may diverge to some extent from those documented here and will likely vary across countries and academic research contexts.

Conclusions

This study, which gave voice to researchers, REB members, and ethics experts, reveals that the ethical issues in research are related to several problematic elements as power imbalances and authority relations. Researchers and research assistants are subject to external pressures that give rise to integrity issues, among others ethical issues. Moreover, the current context of social acceleration influences the definition of the performance indicators valued in academic institutions and has led their members to face several ethical issues, including social, distributive, and epistemic injustices, at different steps of the research process. In this study, ten categories of ethical issues were identified, described and illustrated: (1) research integrity, (2) conflicts of interest, (3) respect for research participants, (4) lack of supervision and power imbalances, (5) individualism and performance, (6) inadequate ethical guidance, (7) social injustices, (8) distributive injustices, (9) epistemic injustices, and (10) ethical distress. The triangulation of the perspectives of different members (i.e., researchers from different disciplines, REB members, research ethics experts, and one research assistant) involved in the research process made it possible to lift the veil on some of these ethical issues. Further, it enabled the identification of additional ethical issues, especially systemic injustices experienced in research. To our knowledge, this is the first time that these injustices (social, distributive, and epistemic injustices) have been clearly identified.

Finally, this study brought to the fore several problematic elements that are important to address if the research community is to develop and implement the solutions needed to resolve the diverse and transversal ethical issues that arise in research institutions. A good starting point is the rejection of the corollary norms of “publish or perish” and “do more, faster, and better” and their replacement with “publish quality instead of quantity”, which necessarily entails “do less, slower, and better”. It is also important to pay more attention to the systemic injustices within which researchers work, because these have the potential to significantly harm the academic careers of many researchers, including women researchers, early career researchers, and those belonging to racialized groups as well as the health, well-being, and respect of students and research participants.

Acknowledgements

The team warmly thanks the participants who took part in the research and who made this study possible. Marie-Josée Drolet thanks the five research assistants who participated in the data collection and analysis: Julie-Claude Leblanc, Élie Beauchemin, Pénéloppe Bernier, Louis-Pierre Côté, and Eugénie Rose-Derouin, all students at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR), two of whom were active in the writing of this article. MJ Drolet and Bryn Williams-Jones also acknowledge the financial contribution of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), which supported this research through a grant. We would also like to thank the reviewers of this article who helped us improve it, especially by clarifying and refining our ideas.

Competing Interests and Funding

As noted in the Acknowledgements, this research was supported financially by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Ethics Research Paper Topics

This page provides a comprehensive list of ethics research paper topics , aiming to guide students through the intricate labyrinth of moral and ethical discussions. Curated meticulously by iResearchNet, the guide not only presents diverse topics across various ethical domains but also imparts invaluable insights on choosing the ideal topic and formulating a compelling research paper. For both newcomers and those well-acquainted with ethics research, this resource stands as a beacon, illuminating the path to academic success.

100 Ethics Research Paper Topics

The vast field of ethics, deeply intertwined with the human experience, requires continual exploration and understanding. For students embarking on academic pursuits, identifying the right ethics research paper topics becomes paramount. Not only does it set the stage for meaningful inquiry, but it also determines the depth and breadth of the discourse. The study of ethics challenges individuals to dissect, question, and offer insights into the moral compass that guides societies. This extensive list has been curated to provide students with a wide array of ethics research paper topics, covering various domains, each reflecting the multi-faceted nature of ethical discussions.

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1. Medical Ethics :

• Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide
• Genetic Engineering
• Reproductive Rights
• Medical Data Privacy
• Informed Consent
• Healthcare Resource Allocation
• Research on Vulnerable Groups
• Organ Donation Ethics
• Mental Health Ethics
• Medical Tourism

2. Business Ethics :

• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Whistleblowing
• Employee Rights
• Ethical Advertising
• Insider Trading
• Sustainability in Business
• Supply Chain Ethics
• Consumer Rights
• Business in Conflict Zones
• Cultural Appropriation in Business

3. Environmental Ethics :

• Conservation vs. Industrialization
• Animal Rights & Welfare
• Climate Change Morality
• Genetic Modification of Crops
• Resource Depletion
• Ecotourism Ethics
• Pollution & Accountability
• Water Rights & Access
• Biodiversity Ethics
• Ethical Consumerism

4. Technological Ethics :

• AI & Machine Learning Ethics
• Digital Privacy
• Cybersecurity Ethics
• Bioengineering Ethics
• Technology & Mental Health
• Digital Addiction
• Tech Industry Labor Ethics
• Automation & Job Ethics
• Virtual Reality Morality
• Technology in Education Ethics

5. Digital & Media Ethics :

• Misinformation & Fake News
• Digital Censorship & Freedom of Speech
• Representation in Media
• Digital Influencers & Ethics
• Intellectual Property in the Digital Age
• Ethical Journalism in Conflict Zones
• Social Media & Privacy Concerns
• Ethics of Digital Activism
• Gaming Industry Ethics
• Media Consumption & Mental Health

6. Social & Cultural Ethics :

• Gender Equality & Women’s Rights
• Racism & Discrimination
• LGBTQ+ Rights & Representation
• Immigration & Refugee Ethics
• Multiculturalism & Assimilation
• Religious Tolerance & Freedom
• Indigenous Rights & Representation
• Social Welfare System Ethics
• Income Inequality & Wealth Distribution
• Child Rights & Protection

7. Educational Ethics :

• Academic Integrity & Plagiarism
• Equal Access to Quality Education
• Standardized Testing & Ethics
• Educator-Student Relationship Boundaries
• Curriculum Bias & Representation
• Special Needs Education Ethics
• Tuition Fees & Student Debt
• Technology in Classroom Ethics
• Bilingual Education Ethics
• Ethics of School Discipline & Punishments

8. Political & Governance Ethics :

• Campaign Financing & Lobbying
• Voter Rights & Suppression
• Ethical Governance & Corruption
• Surveillance & Citizen Privacy
• International Diplomacy Ethics
• War, Peacekeeping & Military Ethics
• Human Rights & Global Governance
• Ethics of Sanctions & Economic Pressure
• Political Propaganda & Manipulation
• Whistleblowing in Government

9. Sports & Recreation Ethics :

• Doping & Performance Enhancing Drugs
• Athlete Welfare & Rights
• Gender & Sports: Equal Representation
• Commercialization & Sport Sponsorships
• eSports & Digital Gaming Ethics
• Youth Sports & Pressure
• Olympic Games & Politics
• Fan Behavior & Hooliganism
• Sports Journalism & Representation
• Ethics of Sports Betting & Gambling

10. Art & Aesthetics Ethics :

• Art Censorship & Freedom of Expression
• Representation & Diversity in Art
• Art & Cultural Appropriation
• Ethics of Art Restoration & Preservation
• Digital Art & Intellectual Property
• Ethics of Art Criticism
• Art in Public Spaces & Community
• Funding & Sponsorship in the Arts
• Technology & Art Fusion Ethics
• Art as Activism & Political Expression

Within the broad spectrum of ethics research paper topics, lie endless opportunities to engage with pressing questions, challenge established norms, and contribute to the evolving ethical paradigms of the 21st century. As society grapples with new technologies, shifting global dynamics, and unprecedented challenges, the importance of ethical exploration cannot be overstated. We invite every student to dive deep into this list, to find their niche within the vast expanse of ethical topics. By selecting the right ethics research paper topics, they can position themselves at the forefront of dialogues that have the power to reshape our world’s moral landscape.

Browse More Ethics Research Paper Topics:

• Applied Ethics
• Care Ethics
• Comparative Ethics
• Descriptive Ethics
• Evolutionary Ethics
• Feminist Ethics
• Meta-Ethics
• Normative Ethics
• Professional Ethics
• Religious Ethics

The Range of Ethics Research Paper Topics

Introduction to Ethics as a Discipline At the heart of human existence lies the perennial question: What ought we to do? Ethics, a sophisticated branch of philosophy, is dedicated to answering this question, probing deep into the realms of right and wrong, duty, and responsibility. As societies, technologies, and cultures evolve, the exploration of ethical tenets has expanded, encompassing various domains and scenarios, from everyday life choices to complex geopolitical decisions.

Historical Context of Ethics Tracing back to antiquity, the ethical compass was set by seminal thinkers. Ancient Greeks, through the philosophical musings of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, dissected concepts of virtue, the purpose of life, and societal duties. Concurrently, in the East, doctrines of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism were offering profound insights into ethical living, highlighting righteousness, duty, and the cosmic order. These foundational thoughts provided the architecture for successive generations to build upon, creating a rich tapestry of ethical frameworks.

Evolution of Ethical Considerations The journey from medieval to modern times witnessed a fascinating evolution of ethics. The Middle Ages were dominated by religious ethics, where moral codes were often derived from religious scriptures and divine interventions. Philosophers like Thomas Aquinas sought to reconcile reason with faith. The Renaissance and Enlightenment periods championed human reason, leading to secular ethical theories. Thinkers like Immanuel Kant, Jeremy Bentham, and John Stuart Mill introduced deontological and utilitarian perspectives, respectively. Fast-forwarding to the contemporary era, we’re in an age that grapples with challenges birthed by rapid technological advancements, sociopolitical changes, and a globalized world, each demanding nuanced ethical considerations.

Diverse Areas of Study within Ethics Ethics now sprawls across various disciplines, each reflecting the pressing concerns of the age. Medical ethics, for instance, navigates the intricate maze of patient rights, bioengineering, and health equity. Business ethics is centered around corporate governance, sustainability, consumer rights, and corporate social responsibilities. Environmental ethics is a testimony to our growing realization of Earth’s fragility, prompting discourses on conservation, animal rights, and sustainable development. These subdivisions elucidate the vastness and depth of the ethical universe, emphasizing its applicability in multifarious sectors.

Relevance in Today’s Interconnected World Today, the tapestry of global interconnectivity has heightened the importance of ethical considerations. Information dissemination is rapid; societies are interwoven in complex ways, where a decision in one corner of the world can reverberate globally. This hyperconnected ecosystem underscores the pivotal role of ethics, be it in global trade, international diplomacy, technological advancements, or individual behavioral patterns.

Case Studies Illustrating Depth and Breadth of Ethical Inquiries :

• The Trolley Problem : Delving beyond its elementary rendition, it spawns intricate debates on individual vs. collective good, direct vs. indirect harm, and the essence of moral decisions.
• Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Scandal : This case becomes a lens to inspect broader issues: the sanctity of individual data, the ethics of persuasion, and the overarching responsibilities of digital behemoths.
• Fast Fashion Dilemmas : Beyond the immediate issues of labor rights and sustainability, it beckons discussions on consumerism, cultural commodification, and the ethics of globalization.
• Gene Editing and CRISPR : A groundbreaking technology that calls into question the ethics of playing ‘God’, altering genetic codes, potential misuse, and the overarching implications for humanity’s evolution.
• Refugee Crisis : An intersection of geopolitical maneuvers, human rights, nationalism vs. globalism, and the ethical responsibilities of nations and individuals.

The Global Impact of Ethics Research Ethical research isn’t a mere academic endeavor; its ramifications ripple through the global fabric. Policies, laws, international treaties, corporate strategies, and even grassroots movements are often anchored in rigorous ethical discussions. For instance, international climate accords are informed by environmental ethics, dictating the shared responsibilities of nations. Similarly, discussions on data privacy regulations are imbued with digital ethics, reflecting the collective consensus on individual rights in the digital age.

Conclusion Stressed on the Limitless Possibilities of Research in Ethics Ethics, with its expansive history and multifaceted nature, continues to be a beacon, illuminating the intricacies of human actions and intentions. The extensive array of “ethics research paper topics” is testament to its sprawling scope, touching upon nearly every facet of human existence. As we stand at the precipice of monumental global changes, the canvas of ethical research beckons scholars, students, and thinkers to engage, question, and sculpt the moral landscape of the future. With every ethical inquiry, we edge closer to understanding the complexities of the human psyche, societal constructs, and the broader universe, unveiling limitless possibilities.

How to Choose Ethics Research Paper Topics

Embarking on a scholarly voyage begins with a crucial decision – choosing the right topic. In the vast domain of academic research, the topic serves as the foundation stone, shaping the trajectory of the entire study. Especially when navigating the intricate waters of “ethics research paper topics,” this choice is paramount. A judiciously chosen topic can serve as a mirror, reflecting societal concerns, personal beliefs, and scholarly gaps, ensuring the research not only informs but also inspires.

• Align with Personal Interest : Your passion becomes the heartbeat of your research. When selecting among various ethics research paper topics, gravitate towards those that genuinely intrigue you. An authentic interest will sustain your enthusiasm throughout the research process, making challenges more surmountable and discoveries more exhilarating. Remember, when you’re invested emotionally and intellectually, your writing exudes a palpable fervor that resonates with readers.
• Consider Societal Relevance : The rapidly changing societal landscape constantly births new ethical dilemmas. Aim for topics that are at the forefront of current debates, as they will be both timely and impactful. Such topics will also allow you to contribute constructively to real-world discussions, ensuring your research isn’t just an academic exercise but a tool for societal introspection.
• Assess Available Resources : Before finalizing a topic, gauge the availability of research materials. Whether it’s online databases, libraries, or expert interviews, a robust collection of resources will be instrumental. A topic with abundant scholarly materials offers a richer backdrop against which you can position your arguments.
• Seek Feedback : Engage in preliminary discussions about potential topics with peers, mentors, or professionals in the ethics arena. Their feedback can offer fresh perspectives, highlight overlooked challenges, and even introduce you to invaluable resources. This collaborative approach can fine-tune your choice, ensuring it’s well-rounded and robust.
• Evaluate Scope : In the vast ocean of ethics research paper topics, it’s easy to either drown in overly broad topics or find oneself restricted in extremely niche areas. A well-defined scope ensures your research remains focused yet comprehensive. Consider drafting preliminary research questions to test the waters; if you find them too vast or too constrained, it might be time to recalibrate.
• Anticipate Challenges : Each topic brings its unique set of challenges. From counterarguments and controversial perspectives to gaps in existing literature, anticipating these hurdles equips you for a smoother research journey. Strategizing in advance can help mitigate potential roadblocks, ensuring your research remains on track.
• Cross-disciplinary Potential : Some of the most enriching ethics research paper topics are those that straddle multiple disciplines. Consider topics that interweave ethics with fields like technology, biology, sociology, or law. Such intersections can offer multifaceted insights, elevate your research’s depth, and cater to a more diverse readership.
• Originality Counts : While established topics offer the comfort of abundant resources, there’s undeniable merit in exploring uncharted territories. Whether it’s introducing a novel perspective to a known issue or probing a relatively untouched area, originality can significantly elevate your research’s value.
• Ethical Implications : Being in the realm of ethics, it’s paramount to introspect on the moral ramifications of your chosen topic. Will it spark meaningful discourse? Will it challenge established beliefs or reinforce them? Ensure that your topic is not just analytically sound but also ethically potent.
• Future Potential : A hallmark of impactful research is its potential to birth further studies. As you sift through ethics research paper topics, reflect on their prospective contributions. Can your topic pave the way for subsequent research? Can it evolve with changing societal dynamics? A topic with longevity ensures your research remains relevant beyond its immediate publication.

The odyssey of crafting a research paper is both challenging and rewarding, with the initial choice of topic setting the stage for what follows. While there’s a myriad of “ethics research paper topics” to delve into, ensuring alignment with personal interest, societal relevance, and scholarly depth can transform your research from mundane to monumental. As budding scholars, harnessing the power of a well-chosen topic is the first step in leaving an indelible imprint in the annals of academic and societal discourse.

How to Write an Ethics Research Paper

Writing an ethics research paper is an intricate blend of philosophy, societal observations, and rigorous academic inquiry. Unlike many other disciplines where facts and figures predominantly steer the content, ethics brings in the added layer of moral scrutiny and philosophical debate. Thus, crafting a paper in this domain demands not only academic rigor but also a thoughtful understanding of the ever-evolving moral compass of society.

• Start with a Strong Thesis : The thesis is the linchpin of your research, offering readers a concise insight into your central argument. Given the philosophical nature of ethics, it’s paramount to ensure that your thesis is both precise and thought-provoking. It should be a reflection of your stance while being open to interrogation.
• Ensure Unbiased Representation : Ethical discussions often tread on contentious grounds. While you’ll have your perspective, it’s crucial to present all sides of an argument fairly. This ensures the paper doesn’t become a personal opinion piece but stands as an unbiased academic exploration.
• Incorporate Varied Philosophical Perspectives : Ethics has been debated for millennia, with various philosophical theories emerging over time. Draw from these diverse traditions – be it utilitarianism, deontological ethics, virtue ethics, or others – to enrich your paper’s theoretical foundation.
• Engage with Contemporary Issues : While ethical principles might be timeless, their applications evolve with societal changes. Anchor your paper in contemporary scenarios, drawing parallels or distinctions between age-old principles and modern-day dilemmas.
• Prioritize Depth Over Breadth : Given the vast expanse of ethical debates, it’s tempting to touch upon multiple issues. However, a focused deep dive into one specific issue often yields more scholarly rewards than a superficial sweep across several.
• Cite Reliable Sources : Establish the credibility of your arguments by leaning on reputable sources. Whether you’re quoting ancient philosophers or referencing modern ethicists, ensure your sources are authoritative and relevant.
• Interact with Counterarguments : A well-rounded ethics research paper doesn’t shy away from counterarguments. Instead, it actively engages with them, dissecting their logic and either refuting or integrating their insights. This not only strengthens your primary argument but also showcases a holistic understanding of the topic.
• Maintain a Logical Flow : The nature of ethical discussions can be abstract. Hence, maintaining a clear and logical flow in your paper is vital. Each section should seamlessly lead to the next, with clear transitions ensuring the reader remains engaged and oriented throughout.
• Seek Peer Reviews : Given the subjective nature of ethics, obtaining feedback from peers or mentors can be invaluable. They might offer alternative interpretations, point out potential biases, or suggest additional resources to bolster your arguments.
• Conclude with Future Implications : Round off your paper by discussing the potential implications of your findings. How might they influence future ethical debates, policy decisions, or societal behaviors? This not only adds relevance to your research but also underscores its significance in the broader ethical discourse.

Embarking on the journey of writing an ethics research paper is a commendable endeavor. It’s a pursuit that demands meticulous research, unbiased representation, and deep philosophical introspection. While the path might be laden with challenges, the rewards – in the form of enriched understandings, ignited debates, and potential societal impacts – are profound. As scholars delving into the realm of ethics, let’s strive to craft papers that not only dissect ethical quandaries but also illuminate paths towards a more reflective and just society.

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177 Interesting Ethics Paper Topics For Your Thesis

Ethics is a branch of study in philosophy that studies the concept of morality—what is good or bad, what is acceptable or unacceptable. It’s a philosophical theory that looks into moral rules and codes, principles, value systems, and other related concepts.

In academia, an ethical theory is used as one of the analytical tools in drawing analysis on several socio-cultural topics. Ethics can be applied to any particular subject matter in human society. And, on this, so many compelling, controversial or interesting ethical topics for academic essays and research papers have continued to spring up.

For students writing either an essay or a research paper on ethics, there are some relevant things to note about a good essay/research topic and writing a dissertation. They include:

Brainstorm on different topics Always go for a topic you are familiar with Choose a topic that has enough “flesh”. This is important as interesting topics will help you develop your essay/research Define your subject of interest. It makes the writing easier Properly researching for topics that serve contemporary social relevance Outlining is important for your research topic

What following some of these processes does for your essay/research/thesis is that it enriches your work and affords you the ability to communicate ideas clearly to readers. Here are some topics in ethics you can use for your essay/research.

Interesting Top Level Ethics Paper Topics for All Students

Writing a paper on ethics makes for an interesting writing experience because they usually require that the writer make a case for a particular subject based on whether the subject is right or wrong. There are so many ethical topics for papers. As a student, there are several ethical questions to debate, and you can choose to model your topic using some of these samples:

• Discuss what should be done concerning the rise in the ban on safe abortion
• Is the right to safe abortion practice unethical?
• Should abortion practice be promoted or championed for women in society?
• Are humans truly the root source for the issues of climate change and global warming the world is currently experiencing?
• Is it right to discriminate against the sexes?
• Is there a defining difference between sexes and gender?
• Is the practice of gender-based violence ethical?
• Should safe sexual practices be promoted?
• Sex: A Study of the growing practice of sexual relationships outside marriage
• Domestic Violence and how it can be combated
• Marijuana: The distinction to its health roles and health challenges it poses on individuals
• Is it unethical to promote capitalism and capitalist concepts?
• A Study of Racism and measures to ensure its decline
• Is it ethical to be a millionaire while there are so many less privileged people?
• A study of the ethical challenges that come with being in the academia
• Is war an ethical practice?
• Why LGBTQ+ people should not be discriminated against
• What are the ways workplace ethics can address issues of homophobia and internalized sexism?
• Is sexism in the workplace an ethical practice?
• The issue of microaggression and how it can be addressed
• A study of why workplaces need ethical conduct that monitors issues of workplace harassment
• Should salaries be uneven?
• How unethical are uneven salary payment structures?
• Should start-up tech companies hire more men for starters?
• How people can prioritize online privacy
• Is bridging online privacy unethical?
• Is the right to privacy unethical?

Engaging Ethical Dilemma Topics

As ethics deals with the debate on morals, one of the ways topics on ethics manifests is in the subject of dilemma. Topics like this focus on trying to find a suitable justification for one idea over another. There are several ethics topics to write about on this subject. Some of them include:

• Should students be allowed to bring their phones to school?
• Should parents police every social activity of their children?
• Should teachers use the cane on students as a disciplinary measure?
• Is flogging a good correctional practice?
• Should you leave your partner if they are of opposing political views?
• Should opposing religious beliefs be a deal-breaker in relationships?
• Should capitalism be abolished completely?
• Should a teacher maintain some level of friendship with their students?
• Is there any lingering importance of capitalism to society?
• Is revenge a viable option in a relationship if your partner cheats on you?
• Is sharing your experiences online the same as showing off a lifestyle?
• Should people from different religious beliefs and backgrounds partner?
• Is checking the DNA of your children important or necessary?
• Should parents enforce their children on behaviors to take up?
• Can discipline properly correct the attitudes of a child?
• Should eating junk foods be avoided completely?
• Should Halloween Trick or Treat and Costume be prioritized over Thanksgiving Dinners?
• Should children hold different religious beliefs from their parents while still young?
• Does strict parenting serve as the best way to raise a child?
• Is it important to reveal a secret to a friend or to keep one’s peace?
• Should cooking at home be prioritized over eating out?
• Is socialism a more suitable social practice than capitalism?
• Is accepting financial assistance from your parents acceptable after a certain age?
• Should school authorities seize phones brought to school?
• Is sending a child to a mixed school better than same-sex schools?
• Can afforestation alone save the world from global warming and the general climate change condition?
• Does being educated equate with being intelligent?

Ethical Issues to Write about in Your College Essay

One important thing to note about ethical topics is that they touch across so many different subjects. As a college student preparing to write an essay on ethics, rest assured as there are so many ethics ideas to write about. Here are some ethical topics to write about:

• Does Hiring female employees cover a company’s sexist motives?
• Should Actors be paid more than teachers?
• Taking medical decisions for a patient without their consent
• How ethical is the interference of the judiciary by the legislative arm of government?
• Is it ethical to fire someone due to their dress code?
• Is it unethical to wear colored hair to work?
• Is censorship ethical?
• Where does media censorship draw the line?
• Is it ethical for religious figureheads to meddle in state politics?
• Should gender be the reason why a person is restricted access to certain social privileges?
• Should sexuality be a discriminatory factor in society?
• Should companies and places of work provide counseling and therapy services for their employees?
• Can Children wear makeup on special occasions?
• Is it unethical to make medical decisions for a patient without any recognizable relatives?
• Does dress code need to affect how you are addressed?
• Should implementing ethics in sports be recommended?
• Is police brutality an ethical practice?
• The impacts of the excessive consumption of media content?
• Is the excessive use of social media healthy?
• How can companies ensure paid maternal and paternal leave?
• How can the inclusion of non-binary people in company policies promote growth?
• Is exclusion on the grounds of sexuality ethical?
• Is exclusion due to political beliefs unethical?
• How to promote ethical work culture?
• How can a company ensure that ethical practices are promoted in their companies?

Ethical Argument Topics to Write About

The best part about writing an ethical essay is that it is about anything that is of interest. An important aspect of the ethical argument topic is that it is supported with evidence. There are so many ethical topics to write about that fall within this category, and they include:

• Is the having of ethical codes and conducts important in an organization?
• Should people only implement progressive ideas to meet societal needs?
• Why LGBTQ+ should not be discriminated against
• Is it unethical to come to work late?
• Is government-sanctioned execution an ethical practice?
• Is the American incarceration system an effective corrective system?
• Is corrective rape an ethical practice?
• Should the issue of internalized homophobia be addressed?
• Internalized patriarchy and internalized homophobia, which one births one
• Should smoking weed be made legal?
• Why do the less privileged need free healthcare services
• A study of the effects of colonialism and internalized slavery
• Must aspiring journalists only focus on journalism courses?
• Addressing what it means to be of ethical behavior
• Should students be given a take-home assignment?
• Is there any academic relevance to assignments?
• Is access to free healthcare important?
• Does following the ethics code have abt social relevance?
• What role should developed countries play for developing countries?
• Is analysis writing an important aspect of literature?
• What role does ethics play in schools
• Should the address of global warming be continuous?
• Is there room for possible positive developments in global warming?
• Is the practice of ethics the same as moral teaching
• Should schools create sex education into their education curriculum

Comprehensive Ethics Debate Topics for Anyone

Just like the argumentative ethics topic, a debate topic on ethics centers majorly on choosing a part to argue for or against. This argument also is wrapped with evidence to support it. Your ethic topics can be on any subject. You can choose moral topics or any other topic with relevance. Here are some lists of ethical debate topics anyone can write on:

• Should the use of Contraceptives be promoted?
• Does legalizing weed make it any healthier?
• Should school children bring phones into school settings?
• The health impact of excessive engagement on social media
• Social relevance and importance of having ethical conducts
• Do companies with ethical conduct grow ahead
• Does ethics make a workplace safer?
• Are there importance on why sex education should be added to student’s
• Why safe abortion rights should be legalized
• Why the discrimination based on sexuality is harmful
• Why the practice of hedonism is important
• Sexual pleasure: Is it morally good?
• Is happiness dependent on an external factor?
• Why Institutionalized racism is the root cause of racism and racist beliefs
• Should the use of drugs be legalized?
• Is there any progressive importance to having a conservative view on things?
• Should social media apps allow explicit sexual content?
• Should social app builders have access to individual account
• Can homeschool match formal school training?
• Should the government ensure censorship measures?
• Is voting during elections the only form of patriotism?
• Is voting a patriotic display
• Are families allowed to have contradicting religious beliefs?
• Should state governments have any interference with the federal government?
• Should teenagers have access to contraceptives?

Good Ethical Research Papers for your Thesis or Dissertation

Writing either a thesis or a dissertation is a necessary part of academia. As a university student, you can’t graduate from only writing essays withiut writing your graduating thesis. There are so many areas your research paper about ethics can focus on. Here is a list of ethical topics:

• The contemporary relevance of applied ethics
• The psychological impacts of the proliferation of technology
• A Case Study of the legality of weed
• A multi-dimensional approach to the subject of marriage
• An ethical approach to the killing of animals
• A case study of the critical ethical debates on the use of contraception
• An analytical study of the relevance of ethical conduct in the workplace
• An investigation into the social relevance and importance of the beauty pageantry culture
• A critical study of normative ethics
• The role of applied ethics in the building of a healthy work culture
• An overview of the barriers associated with good leadership practice
• A Study of the importance of ethical practice in the healthcare system
• The study of ethics in business social responsibility
• An Overview on how Ethics promotes a saner working culture
• A look into how ethics promotes healthy social relationships
• The ethical relevance for Doctor and Patient Confidentiality
• Malpractice and Negligence an ethically challenging issue within the healthcare system
• The social and health relevance to access to free healthcare insurance
• A Study of the social relevance of ethics
• Violence: violence against animals is still abuse
• A look into strategic approaches to managing cyber crimes
• Ethic reasons for the separation of the church from politics
• Ethical Conduct: How Organizations with practicable ethics produces a toxic work environment
• A look into how Social media negatively impacts the IQ of a student
• The role of self-awareness and professional responsibility impacts social ethics in the workplace

Good Ethical Questions for Discussion

Primarily, ethics asks and answers the question of wrong or good. There are so many social issues that will make for good ethical questions for discussion. Here is a list of ethical questions for students to form insights from:

• How does ethics help to promote healthy workplace awareness?
• Does the practice of abortion negate morality?
• Is it right for a rape victim to be denied access to safe and free abortion?
• How do homophobia, racism, misogyny, and ableist practices hinder social growth?
• Should there be free access to condoms and contraceptive pills?
• Is free access to contraceptives better than the provision of menstrual materials
• How can racism be dismantled in an organization without consideration to institutionalized racism?
• How does the continuous promotion of capitalist concepts hinder societal progress?
• Does capitalism truly hinder social growth?
• Why should there be free access to contraceptive materials especially for women?
• What are the possible feasible solutions to the issue of climate change?
• Is it unethical not to share the wealth?
• Is engaging in warfare the right way to bring solutions?
• Does the use of makeup contradict the concept of beauty?
• Why are LGBTQ+ rights human rights?
• Is the legalization of cannabis ethical?
• Does the way you dress need to be the reason you are addressed a certain way?
• Are there moral problems that come with job automation?
• What can be done to combat the use of harmful substances
• Why should companies stop discriminating based on sex?
• What is the social relevance of providing workplace access?
• Why should parents and teachers stop flogging students?
• What is the distinction between discipline and strictness?
• Should religious beliefs be a dealbreaker in any relationship?

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RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS

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International Journal of Scientific and Research Publications (IJSRP)

Sofiah Samsudin

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Research is of a very significant importance to the individuals, society, different nationalities and also up to the international platform. It exercises a considerable power at all these levels. Therefore, it is extremely essential that the research is undertaken in certain methods which are ethically very sound. The persons who are participating in the research as the informants or otherwise, must be treated with great respect. Researchers must try to produce good consequences and if at all there are any controversial consequences, they should strictly be limited to certain conditions of acceptability. The unfair practices to design and implement the research projects must be strictly avoided. The concerned people are expected to follow the recognized norms such as the proper behavior, openness, honesty and integrity towards the general public, colleagues, participants, national or international delegates, faculties, managers and the organizers of the related events.

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Scientific research must be conducted in accordance with ethical principles. This paper discusses how to ensure that all aspects of a doctoral research, from literature review to conducting research, to writing the dissertation manuscript will be done with care and integrity and will meet the ethical standards of scientific research. This paper will also justify all the steps a researcher will take to ensure the ethical integrity of a dissertation project and not simply describe standard practices. Furthermore, the paper also shows that a researcher must have his / her own clear set of ethical principles, and know how to apply them to their work as they move through the process of writing a thesis.

Yasir Arafat

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Research Ethics has become one of the most important issues in research activities. Many professional associations, government agencies, and universities have approved specific codes, rules, and policies relating to research ethics. Nuremberg Code 1947 has been a prominent reference for being adopted by organizations in conducting research ethics. This paper tries to explain what research ethics means, how important ethics in research activities, and some ethics principles which many experts shed light on and currently prevail in many organizations including universities. In the end of this paper, it is revealed some of those principles that could be more appropriate to be paid more attention related with the qualitative and quantitative methods employed.

Bibek Dahal

Research ethics is concerned with ethical issues that can arise while conducting research. Social science research entails a combination of three equal entities: process, context and human agency. In each study, these entities demand rich interaction with each other. Generally, research ethics questions the interrelation between the research context and the human involvement established within that context. The research context and interaction between researcher and research participants lead to variations in the construction of knowledge, while research ethics plays a major role throughout all undertakings. In this narrative review paper, I have critically reflected my arguments on behalf of research ethics as a context-specific issue. I argued that the one-size-fits-all approach of research ethics is not viable by presenting ethical practices from the South Asian perspective. The paper is organized in three specific sections-ethical theories, research ethics and its contextual practices. Research ethics is very much a private affair and directly linked to the personal outlook of the researcher towards others. The ethical issue in research is not generic, but specific to the research context, i.e. the context of the research determines what form of behaviour is ethical and what is not. I explore the idea that the South Asian context may have its own system to conduct research ethically, as in euro-western and indigenous systems.

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Introduction: The research ethics provides guidelines to apply moral regulations and professional codes of conduct in the various steps of research. The research ethics plays a very vital role in the collection, analysis, reporting, and publication of details about research subjects, in particular active acceptance of participant’s right to privacy, confidentiality and the informed consent of the participant. Aims: To assess the Knowledge, awareness and attitudes about research ethics among the faculty and students of medical and dental colleges and the requirement for a regular teaching about research ethics among the faculty and students of medical and dental colleges. Materials & Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted by assessing the responses to 39 selected basic questions regarding Knowledge, awareness and attitudes about research ethics among a total of 415 faculty members and post graduate students of the medical and dental institutions in Karnataka. The questionnaire was made into 5 categories. Chi-square tests was used to determine, in bivariate analyses, the association of each of the independent variables like their speciality, their academic position, prior ethics training, and their prior involvement with research with each of the main outcome of interest. The students t-test was done to assess the respondents scores on the 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 (1-strongly disagree, 2-disagree, 3-not sure, 4-agree and 5-strongly agree). The average of their scores were compared among the various variable like their specialty and academic position by using the ANOVA test. Results: A total of 415 responses were obtained from the participants of the study. Out of this we had 273 respondents as female and 142 respondents as male. Among these 225 respondents were from the medical speciality and 190 from the dental speciality. The P value was kept at 0.05 for this study. Conclusion: The participants of the questionnaire survey showed that the institutional ethics committees would be very useful for promoting health research and are imperative for appraisal of the health research projects.The majority of the respondents agreed that they were well aware of the ethical guidelines governing the human research, but when we assess the respondent’s knowledge and attitudes towards research ethics there seems to be a lacuna in complete awareness and knowledge of research ethics. The results of the study also helped us to assess the requirement for a regular teaching about research ethics among the faculty and students of medical and dental colleges.

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• Published: 07 August 2024

Ethical considerations in public engagement: developing tools for assessing the boundaries of research and involvement

• Jaime Garcia-Iglesias 1 ,
• Iona Beange 2 ,
• Donald Davidson 2 ,
• Suzanne Goopy 3 ,
• Huayi Huang 3 ,
• Fiona Murray 4 ,
• Carol Porteous 5 ,
• Elizabeth Stevenson 6 ,
• Sinead Rhodes 7 ,
• Faye Watson 8 &
• Sue Fletcher-Watson 7  

Research Involvement and Engagement volume  10 , Article number:  83 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Public engagement with research (PEwR) has become increasingly integral to research practices. This paper explores the process and outcomes of a collaborative effort to address the ethical implications of PEwR activities and develop tools to navigate them within the context of a University Medical School. The activities this paper reflects on aimed to establish boundaries between research data collection and PEwR activities, support colleagues in identifying the ethical considerations relevant to their planned activities, and build confidence and capacity among staff to conduct PEwR projects. The development process involved the creation of a taxonomy outlining key terms used in PEwR work, a self-assessment tool to evaluate the need for formal ethical review, and a code of conduct for ethical PEwR. These tools were refined through iterative discussions and feedback from stakeholders, resulting in practical guidance for researchers navigating the ethical complexities of PEwR. Additionally, reflective prompts were developed to guide researchers in planning and conducting engagement activities, addressing a crucial aspect often overlooked in formal ethical review processes. The paper reflects on the broader regulatory landscape and the limitations of existing approval and governance processes, and prompts critical reflection on the compatibility of formal approval processes with the ethos of PEwR. Overall, the paper offers insights and practical guidance for researchers and institutions grappling with ethical considerations in PEwR, contributing to the ongoing conversation surrounding responsible research practices.

Plain English summary

This paper talks about making research fairer for everyone involved. Sometimes, researchers ask members of the public for advice, guidance or insight, or for help to design or do research, this is sometimes known as ‘public engagement with research’. But figuring out how to do this in a fair and respectful way can be tricky. In this paper, we discuss how we tried to make some helpful tools. These tools help researchers decide if they need to get formal permission, known as ethical approval, for their work when they are engaging with members of the public or communities. They also give tips on how to do the work in a good and fair way. We produced three main tools. One helps people understand the important words used in this kind of work (known as a taxonomy). Another tool helps researchers decide if they need to ask for special permission (a self-assessment tool). And the last tool gives guidelines on how to do the work in a respectful way (a code of conduct). These tools are meant to help researchers do their work better and treat everyone involved fairly. The paper also talks about how more work is needed in the area, but these tools are a good start to making research fairer and more respectful for everyone.

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Introduction

In recent decades, “public involvement in research” has experienced significant development, becoming an essential element of the research landscape. In fact, it has been argued, public involvement may make research better and more relevant [ 7 , p. 1]. Patients’ roles, traditionally study participants, have transformed to become “active partners and co-designers” [ 17 , p. 1]. This evolution has led to the appearance of a multitude of definitions and terms to refer to these activities. In the UK, the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement, defines public engagement as the “many ways organisations seek to involve the public in their work” [ 9 ]. In this paper, we also refer to “public involvement,” which is defined as “research being carried out ‘with’ or ‘by’ members of the public rather than ‘to’, ‘about’ or ‘for’ them” (UK Standards for Public Involvement). Further to this, the Health Research Authority (also in the UK), defines public engagement with research as “all the ways in which the research community works together with people including patients, carers, advocates, service users and members of the community” [ 6 ]; [ 9 ]. These terms encompass a wide variety of theorizations, levels of engagement, and terminology, such as ‘patient-oriented research’, ‘participatory’ research or services or ‘patient engagement’ [ 17 , p. 2]. For this paper, we use the term ‘public engagement with research’ or PEwR in this way.

Institutions have been set up to support PEwR activities. In the UK these include the UK Standards for Public Involvement in Research (supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research), INVOLVE, and the National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE). Most recently, in 2023, the UK’s largest funders and healthcare bodies signed a joint statement “to improve the extent and quality of public involvement across the sector so that it is consistently excellent” [ 6 ]. In turn, this has often translated to public engagement becoming a requisite for securing research funding or institutional ethical permissions [ 3 , p. 2], as well as reporting and publishing research [ 15 ]. Despite this welcomed infrastructure to support PEwR, there remain gaps in knowledge and standards in the delivery of PEwR. One such gap concerns the extent to which PEwR should be subject to formal ethical review in the same way as data collection for research.

In 2016, the UK Health Research Authority and INVOLVE published a joint statement suggesting that “involving the public in the design and development of research does not generally raise any ethical concerns” [ 7 , p. 2]. We presume that this statement is using the phrase ‘ethical concerns’ to narrowly refer to the kinds of concerns addressed by a formal research ethics review process, such as safeguarding, withdrawal from research, etc. Footnote 1 . To such an extent, we agree that public involvement with research is not inherently ‘riskier’ than other research activities.

Furthermore, a blanket need for formal ethical review risks demoting or disempowering non-academic contributors from the roles of consultants, co-researchers, or advisors to a more passive status as participants. Attending a meeting as an expert, discussing new project ideas, setting priorities, designing studies and, or interpreting findings does not require that we sign a consent form. Indeed, to do so clearly removes the locus of power away from the person signing and into the hands of the person who wrote the consent form. This particular risk is exacerbated when institutional, formal ethical review processes operate in complex, convoluted and obscure ways that often baffle researchers let alone members of the public.

However, we also recognize that PEwR is not without potential to do harm – something which formal research ethics review aims to anticipate and minimise. For example, a public lecture or a workshop could cause distress to audience members or participants if they learn for the first time that aspects of their lifestyle or personal history put them at higher risk of dementia. When patients are invited to join advisory panels, they may feel pressure to reveal personal details about their medical history to reinforce their expertise or legitimise their presence – especially in a room where most other people have potentially intimidating professional qualifications. Some patient groups may be exploited, if research involvement roles are positioned as an opportunity, or even a duty, and not properly reimbursed. When patients are more deeply involved in research roles, such as collecting or analysing data, they might experience distress, particularly if interacting with participants triggers their own painful or emotional memories [ 14 , p. 98]. Thus, at all levels of PEwR from science communication to embedded co-production, there is a danger of harm to patients or members of the public, and a duty of care on the part of the research team and broader institution who invited them in.

These concerns are not accessory to PEwR activities but rather exist at their heart. Following a review on the impacts of public engagement, Brett et al. conclude that “developing a wide view which considers the impact of PPI [public and patient involvement] on the people involved in the process can be critical to our understanding of why some studies that involve patients and the public thrive, while others fail” [ 1 , p. 388]. Despite the importance of these considerations, there is a stark absence of consistent guidance as to whether different forms of PEwR require formal ethical review. Nor is there, to our knowledge, any sustained attempt to provide a framework for ethical conduct of PEwR in the absence of formal review (see Pandya-Wood et al. [ 11 ]; Greenhalgh et al. [ 5 ]). This is, in part, due to there being a wide heterogeneity of practices, communities, and levels of engagement [ 8 , p. 6] that resists generalizable principles or frameworks.

The lack of frameworks about whether or how PEwR requires formal ethical review can, ironically, be a key barrier to PEwR happening. In our work as members of a university ethics review committee, we have found this lack of guidance to hamper appropriate ethical PEwR in several ways. Researchers may avoid developing PEwR initiatives altogether for fear of having to spend time or resources in securing formal ethical review (especially when this process is lengthy or resource-intensive). Likewise, they may avoid PEwR for fear that its conduction would be unethical. On the other hand, others could assume that the lack of a requirement for formal ethical review means there are no ethical issues or risks involved in PEwR.

Similarly, experts in PEwR who are not experienced with formal research ethics review may face barriers as their PEwR process becomes more elaborate, in-depth, or complex. For example, although a priority-setting exercise with members of an online community of people with depression was assessed as not requiring ethics review, the funding panel requested that formal ethics review be undergone for a follow-up exercised aimed at collecting data answering one of the priority questions identified in the previous priority-setting. It is crucial that innovations in PEwR and findings from this work are shared and yet academic teams may be unable to publish their work in certain journals which require evidence of having undergone formal ethical review. Finally, ethics committees such as ours often must rely on anecdotal knowledge to make judgements about what does or does not require formal ethical review, given the absence of standardized frameworks.

About this paper

In this paper, we report and reflect on the development of specific tools and processes for assessing the ethical needs of PEwR initiatives, as members of an ethics review committee for a large University medical school. These tools aim to delineate boundaries between research data collection and PEwR activities of various kinds, provide a self-assessment framework for ethical practice in PEwR and, overall, give people greater confidence when conducting PEwR work. We describe and critically reflect on the development of the following resources:

a taxonomy to define key terms relating to PEwR with associated resource recommendations.

a self-assessment tool to support people understanding where their planned activities fall in relation to research or PEwR.

a code of conduct for ethical conduct of PEwR (appended to the self-assessment tool).

We will, first, describe our work as part of an institutional ethics committee, the identification of a need for specific guidance, and our key assumptions; we will then describe the process of developing these tools and processes; provide an overview of the tools themselves; and reflect on early feedback received and future work needed.

Developing specific tools for PEWR in ethics

Identifying needs, goals and outputs.

The Edinburgh Medical School Research Ethics Committee (EMREC) provides ethical opinions to members of staff and postgraduate researchers within the University of Edinburgh Medical School in relation to planned research to be conducted on humans i.e. their data, or tissues. These research activities come from a wide range of disciplines, including public health, epidemiology, social science or psychology. EMREC does not review research that involves recruitment of NHS patients, use of NHS data, or other health service resources: such projects are evaluated by an NHS research ethics committee. EMREC is led by two co-directors and formed of over 38 members, which include experienced academics and academic-clinicians from a variety of disciplines. There are also 2–4 lay members who are not researchers.

EMREC receives regular enquiries about whether a specific piece of PEwR work (such as holding a workshop with people living with endometriosis to identify research priorities or interviewing HIV activists about their work during COVID-19) requires formal ethics review. In addition, often teams contact EMREC following completion of a PEwR activity that they want to publish because the journal in which they wish to publish has requested evidence of the work having undergone formal ethics approval. These enquiries are happening in the context of an institutional investment in staffing, leading to a significant degree of distributed expertise across the Medical School about diverse forms of PEwR.

Responding to this, in the summer of 2022, a Public and Patient Involvement and Engagement working group was formed by EMREC with the aim of developing new tools and processes to navigate the ethical implications of PEWR within the University of Edinburgh Medical School. The group’s original understandings were that:

PEwR is both important and skilled work that presents a unique set of ethical implications,

PEwR is a fragmented landscape where many people have relevant but different expertise and where a wide range of terminology is in use, and.

there is no existing widely-agreed framework for ethical PEwR.

This working group was designed to be temporary, lasting approximately six months. It was composed of eleven members with different degrees of seniority and disciplinary backgrounds - both members of EMREC and those from other parts of the Medical School, and other parts of the University of Edinburgh. Among these, there were both academics and PEwR experts in professional services (i.e. primarily non-academic) roles. The working group met four times (August, September and November 2022; and January 2023).

The group identified three key goals and, in relation to these, key outputs needed. The goals were: (1) help establish boundaries between research data collection (requiring an ethical opinion from EMREC) and PEwR activities of various kinds (requiring ethical reflection/practice but not a formal EMREC ethical opinion), (2) support colleagues to identify where their planned activities fell in the research-PEwR continuum and consequently the relevant ethical framework, and (3) identify ways of building confidence and capacity among staff to conduct PEwR projects. In relation to these goals, the working group initially agreed on producing the following key outputs:

A taxonomy outlining and defining key terms used in the PEwR work, with examples. While not universal or definitive, the taxonomy should help colleagues identify and label their activities and help determine the ethical considerations that would apply to conduct the work with integrity. It would also facilitate conversations between staff with varying levels and types of experience, and ensure that decisions around ethical conduct would be based on more than choice of terminology.

A self-assessment tool to provide a more systematic way to evaluate whether a given academic activity, involving a non-academic partner (organisation or individual) requires formal evaluation by a research ethics committee.

A list of resources collected both from within and beyond our institution that are relevant to the issue of ethics and PEwR and can serve as ‘further reading’ and training.

While we aimed to develop this work with a view to it being useful within the remit of the University of Edinburgh Medical School, we also understood that there was significant potential for these outputs to be of interest and relevance more widely. In this way, we aimed to position them as a pragmatic addition to existing guidance and resources, such as the NIHR Reflective Questions [ 2 ].

Our process

Across the first three meetings, the group worked together on the simultaneous development of the three outputs (taxonomy, self-assessment tool, and resources). The initial taxonomy was informed by the guidance produced by the Public Involvement Resource Hub at Imperial College London [ 10 ]. The taxonomy was developed as a table that included key terms (such as ‘public engagement’, ‘co-production’, or ‘market research’), with their definitions, examples, and synonyms. From early on, it was decided that different key terms would not be defined by the methods used, as there could be significant overlap among these – e.g. something called a focus group might be a part of a consultation, market research or research data collection.

A draft table (with just six categories) was presented in the first meeting and group members were asked to work on the table between meetings, including providing additional examples, amending language, or any other suggestions. This was done on a shared document using ‘comments’ so that contradictory views could be identified and agreements reached. The table was also shared with colleagues from outside the University of Edinburgh Medical School to capture the range of terminologies used across disciplines, recognising the interdisciplinary nature of much research.

Through this process, additional key terms were identified, such as “science communication” and “action research,” definitions were developed more fully, and synonyms were sometimes contextualized (by indicating, for example, shades of difference or usages specific to an area). Upon further work, three additional sections were added to the taxonomy tool: first, an introduction was developed that explained what terminology our specific institution used and noted that the boundaries between different terms were often “fuzzy and flexible.” In addition, the group agreed that it would be useful to provide a narrative example of how different forms of public engagement with research might co-exist and flow from one to another. To this end, a fictional example was developed where a team of clinical researchers interested in diabetes are described engaging in scoping work, research, co-production, science communication and action research at different times of their research programme. Finally, a section was also added that prompted researchers to reflect on the processes of negotiating how partners can be described in research (for example, whether to use terms such as ‘patient’ or ‘lay member’).

For the self-assessment tool, a first iteration was a table with two columns (one for research or work requiring formal ethical review and one for PEwR or work not requiring formal ethical review). The aim was for group members to fill the table with examples of activities that would fall under each category, with a view to identifying generalizable characteristics. However, this task proved complicated given the wide diversity of possible activities, multitude of contexts, and sheer number of exceptions. To address this, group members were asked to complete a case-based exercise. They were presented with the following situation: “I tell you I’m planning a focus group with some autistic folk” and asked how they would determine whether the activity would be a form of data collection for a research project (requiring formal ethical review) or another form of PEwR. Group members were asked, with a view to developing the self-assessment tool, to identify which questions they would ask to assess the activity. The replies of working group members were synthesized by one of the authors (SFW) and presented at the following meeting.

Through discussion as a group, we determined that the questions identified as useful in identifying if an activity required formal ethical review fell, roughly, under four main areas. Under each area, some indicators of activities were provided which were “less likely to need ethics review” and some “more likely to need ethics review”. The four umbrella questions were:

What is the purpose and the planned outcome of the activity? (see Table  1 for an excerpt of the initial draft answer to this question)

What is the status of the people involved in the activity? (indicators of less likely to need ethics review were “participants will be equal partners with academic team” or “participants will be advisors” and indicators more likely to require ethics approval were “participants will undertake tasks determined by academics” or “participants will contribute data or sign consent forms”).

What kind of information is being collected? (indicators of less likely to need ethics review were “asking about expert opinion on a topic” or “sessions will be minuted and notes taken” and indicators more likely to require ethics approval were “sessions will be recorded and transcribed” or “asking about participants’ personal experiences”).

What are the risks inherent in this activity? (indicators of less likely to need ethics review were “participants will be involved in decision-making” or “participants will be credited for their role in a manner of their choosing” and indicators more likely to require ethics approval were “participants’ involvement will and must be anonymized fully” or “participants have a choice between following protocol or withdrawing from the study”).

Upon further work, the group decided to modify this initial iteration in several ways leading to the final version. First, a brief introduction explaining the purpose of the tool was written. This included information about the aims of the tool, and a very brief overview of the process of formal research ethics review. It also emphasised the importance of discussion of the tool within the team, with PEwR experts and sometimes with EMREC members, depending on how clear-cut the outcome was. Second, we included brief information about what are ‘research’ and ‘public engagement with research’ with a view to supporting people who may not be familiar with how these concepts are used by ethics review committees (for example, lay co-applicants or co-researchers). Third, we included key guidance about how to use the tool, including ‘next steps’ if the activity was determined to be research or engagement. Importantly, this emphasised that none of the questions posed and indicators given were definitive of something needing or not needing formal research ethics review, but instead they should be used collectively to signpost a team towards, or away from, formal review.

Finally, while the four umbrella questions remained the same as in the previous iteration, the indicators under each were further refined. In discussing the previous version, the group agreed that, while some indicators could relate to an activity falling into either category (research or engagement) depending on other factors, there were others that were much more likely to fall under one category than the other. In other words, while no single indicator was deterministic of needing or not needing formal review, some indicators were more influential than others on the final self-assessment outcome. Thus, we divided the indicators associated with each umbrella question into two sub-groups. The more influential indicators were labelled as either “probably doesn’t need ethical review” or “almost certainly needs ethical review”. Less influential indicators were labelled as either “less likely to need ethical review” or “more likely to need ethical review.” This is shown in Table  2 .

This new format retains the awareness of the sometimes-blurry lines between research and PEwR for many activities, but also seeks to provide stronger direction through indicative activities that are more clear-cut, with a particular view to supporting early-career researchers and people new to ethics reviews and/or engagement processes.

A key concern of the group was what would happen next if a planned activity, using the self-assessment tool, was deemed as PEwR. The formal review process for research would not be available for a planned activity identified as PEwR i.e. completing a series of documents and a number of protocols to deal with issues such as data protection, safeguarding, etc. This would leave a vacuum in terms of guidance for ethical conduction of PEwR. The group was concerned that some people using the self-assessment tool might arrive at the conclusion that their planned activity was entirely without ethical risks, given that it was not required to undergo formal review. Others might be conscious of the risks but feel adrift as to how to proceed. This was a particular concern with early-career researchers and indeed established academics turning to PEwR for the first time: we wanted to facilitate their involvement with PEwR but we were also aware that many may lack experience and resources. To address this, the group decided to develop an additional output comprising a series of reflective prompts to guide researchers in planning and conducting engagement activities.

The prompts were organized under four headings. First, “Data Minimisation and Security” included information about required compliance with data protection legislation, suggestions about collecting and processing information, and ideas around ensuring confidentiality. Second, “Safeguarding Collaborators and Emotional Labour” prompted researchers to think about the risk of partners becoming distressed and suggested what things should be planned for in this regard. Third, “Professional Conduct and Intellectual Property” included advice on how to clearly manage partners’ expectations around their contributions, impact, and intellectual property. Finally, fourth, under “Power Imbalances”, the guidance discusses how researchers may work to address the inherent imbalances that exist in relationships with partners. It prompts the researcher to think about choice of location, information sharing, and authorship among others. While the Edinburgh Medical School Research Ethics Committee remains available for consultation on all these matters, as well as dedicated and professional PEwR staff, the group developed these guidelines with a view both to emphasizing the fact that an activity not requiring formal ethical review did not mean that the activity was absent of risk or did not require careful ethical planning; and to support those who may be unfamiliar with how to develop engagement activities. It was decided that this guideline should follow the self-assessment tool for clarity.

Finally, in the process of developing these outputs (the planned taxonomy and assessment tool, and the additional reflective prompts appended to the assessment tool), the group collected a large number of resources, including academic papers (e.g. Staniszewska et al. [ 16 ]; Schroeder et al. [ 13 ]; Redman et al. [ 12 ]; Fletcher-Watson et al. [ 4 ]), guidance produced by other institutions, and key online sites with information about national frameworks or policy. Among these, key resources were selected and appended to the taxonomy document. The final version of these documents can be found as appendices (Supplementary Material  1 : Assessment tool and reflective prompts; Supplementary Material  2 : Taxonomy and resources).

Further considerations and early results

The guidance and tools presented here are designed to clarify a boundary between research and engagement that is poorly defined and could cause harm if not well understood. In sharing them, we aim to facilitate researchers’ engagement with PEwR by providing familiarity with the terminology and approaches, examples, and suggesting key considerations. Most importantly, they support researchers to determine whether their planned activity should undergo a formal ethical review process or not – and if not, guides them towards ethical conduct in the absence of formal review. Reflecting on the process much of what we have explained essentially reflects a distinction between PEwR and research data collection that can be encapsulated within the idea of ‘locus of control’: namely that during PEwR the locus of control, as far as possible, sits with the engaged communities or members.

It should be noted, however, that researchers and these guidance and tools exist within a larger landscape, with added regulatory processes. Thus, researchers may need (regardless of whether their planned activity is research or engagement) to navigate additional compliance such as data protection or information security protocols and / or to consider reputational risk associated with certain topics. We are aware that the overlap of complex and sometimes obscure regulatory demands complicates the task of conducting both research and PEwR, as it requires researchers to juggle multiple procedures, documents, and approvals. This publication does not resolve all the questions that exist, but it does attempt to take a bold step towards confronting grey areas and providing systematic processes to navigate them.

The outputs described above were made available on the University of Edinburgh Medical School Research Ethics Committee intranet site under the heading “Public Engagement with Research.” While we do not collect statistics on the number of times the resources have been used, the committee has received positive feedback from people who have engaged with the documents. For example, one researcher commented that, in the process of developing an engagement activity, they had been “grappling with precisely these questions (of whether this qualifies as research, and whether it requires ethical review)” and that the documents were “quite timely and helpful. It allows me to think about these considerations in a systematic manner and it’s handy for me to send on to others as a framework for discussion should we have differing opinions.” It was this mention to the possibility of these documents being used as a framework for discussion that prompted us to write this paper as a way of sharing them beyond the University of Edinburgh College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine (where they are already used for training early-career researchers and in the MSc in Science Communication and Public Engagement). While we think they can be useful, we also encourage potential users to adapt them to their specific contexts, with different institutions potentially establishing differing procedures or requirements. To that end, we have shared in this paper the process of writing these documents so that other people and teams may also think through them productively and creatively.

Final reflections

In developing these documents, we sought to answer a need among members of our immediate community, seeking to better assess whether an activity required formal ethical review and wanting guidance to ethically conduct PEwR work. However, we also came to realize the limitations of existing approval and governance processes. In our case, a key reason why these documents were developed is because existing formal ethical review processes would not be adequate to capture the particularities and complexities of PEwR in our large, diverse Medical School.

Looking back at the tools we developed and the feedback received, we are also satisfied with the pragmatic approach we took. There is a vast amount of resources and literature available about how to conduct PEwR, as well as a multitude of accounts and reflections both of an anecdotal and epistemological nature. Building on this conceptual work and associated principles, we sought to develop pragmatic, clear, applicable tools, without overwhelming users with a multitude of available resources and complex theory. This is, we feel, particularly applicable to contexts like ours: a large, very diverse medical school which encompasses biomedical to social science disciplines where researchers and funders have vastly differing expectations and knowledge of PEwR.

This process also led us to reflect on the practical functions of formal ethical review. Formal ethics approval provides applicants with structured resources to think and plan about their work, feedback and guidance about their plans, and—most commonly—a code and letter than can be used to easily report to journals that your research has met a specific ethical threshold. With these documents we have sought to provide some similar, pragmatic guidance to support and empower people, through a self-assessment process. This begs the question, what, if any, formal approval processes should be developed for PEwR? Are such formal processes in any way adequate to the ethos of PEwR? Would formal independent review necessarily conflict with the values of PEwR, namely the empowerment of community members as decision-makers and experts? Thus, these documents and this paper contribute to an ongoing conversation as PEwR continues to develop in frequency and sophistication in health and social care research.

Data availability

No datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

The difference between research and public engagement is a complex one. Formal ethics approval, which is often seen as a regulatory or compliance mechanism, may not always be a good marker of this boundary, as it may ignore complex issues such as the distribution of power, the ethos of the activities, or their aims. Furthermore, different institutions use different criteria to determine what activities require ethics approval or are considered research. In this paper we reflect on the process of developing tools which we intended as pragmatic interventions that would support researchers, especially those without previous experience of PEwR to label their planned activities and understand their implications. Thus, we employ—even if not at all times comfortably—the framework that equates research with activities requiring ethics approval and PEwR with activities not requiring ethics approval.

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Acknowledgements

For the purposes of open access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright license to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.

This research was supported, in part, by the Economic and Social Research Council [ES/X003604/1].

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Garcia-Iglesias, J., Beange, I., Davidson, D. et al. Ethical considerations in public engagement: developing tools for assessing the boundaries of research and involvement. Res Involv Engagem 10 , 83 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-024-00617-8

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• Lecours, A., Baril, N., & Drolet, M. J. (2021). What is Professionalism in Occupational Therapy? A Concept Analysis: Qu'est-ce que le professionnalisme en ergothérapie? Analyse de ce concept.  Canadian journal of occupational therapy. Revue canadienne d'ergotherapie, 88(2), 117–130. https://doi.org/10.1177/0008417421994377
• Reiter, K., Helgeson, L., & Lee, S. C. (2018). Enhancing Professionalism Among OT Students: The Culture of Professionalism . Journal of Occupational Therapy Education, 2 (3). https://doi.org/10.26681/ jote.2018.020308
• The 2020 Occupational Therapy Code of Ethics (the Code) of the American Occupational Therapy Association (AOTA) is designed to reflect the dynamic nature of the occupational therapy profession, the evolving health care environment, and emerging technologies that can present potential ethical concerns in practice, research, education, and policy. AOTA members are committed to promoting inclusion, participation, safety, and well-being for all recipients of service in various stages of life, health, and illness and to empowering all beneficiaries of service to meet their occupational needs. Recipients of services may be persons, groups, families, organizations, communities, or populations ( AOTA, 2020 )

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Generative AI: A Legal Ethics Roadmap and Reference Guide

The American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility released ABA Formal Opinion 512: Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools on July 29. Here’s a roadmap of how we got here, and a reference guide to where we are with select case law and legal ethics rules in the era of GenAI.

August 11, 2024 at 05:58 PM

16 minute read

Artificial Intelligence

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At least 55 of ILTACON 2024’s sessions have some reference to artificial intelligence, and for almost every attendee in Nashville this week, legal ethics should be an important issue—especially when it comes to generative AI (abbreviated often as “GenAI” or, in the case of the American Bar Association, “GAI”).

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• 14 August 2024

Has your paper been used to train an AI model? Almost certainly

• Elizabeth Gibney

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Academic publisher Wiley has sold access to its research papers to firms developing large language models. Credit: Timon Schneider/Alamy

Academic publishers are selling access to research papers to technology firms to train artificial-intelligence (AI) models. Some researchers have reacted with dismay at such deals happening without the consultation of authors. The trend is raising questions about the use of published and sometimes copyrighted work to train the exploding number of AI chatbots in development.

Experts say that, if a research paper hasn’t yet been used to train a large language model (LLM), it probably will be soon. Researchers are exploring technical ways for authors to spot if their content being used.

AI models fed AI-generated data quickly spew nonsense

Last month, it emerged that the UK academic publisher Taylor & Francis, had signed a US$10-million deal with Microsoft, allowing the US technology company to access the publisher’s data to improve its AI systems. And in June, an investor update showed that US publisher Wiley had earned $23 million from allowing an unnamed company to train generative-AI models on its content.

Anything that is available to read online — whether in an open-access repository or not — is “pretty likely” to have been fed into an LLM already, says Lucy Lu Wang, an AI researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle. “And if a paper has already been used as training data in a model, there’s no way to remove that paper after the model has been trained,” she adds.

Massive data sets

LLMs train on huge volumes of data, frequently scraped from the Internet. They derive patterns between the often billions of snippets of language in the training data, known as tokens, that allow them to generate text with uncanny fluency.

Generative-AI models rely on absorbing patterns from these swathes of data to output text, images or computer code. Academic papers are valuable for LLM builders owing to their length and “high information density”, says Stefan Baack, who analyses AI training data sets at the Mozilla Foundation, a global non-profit organization in San Francisco, California that aims to keep the Internet open for all to access.

How does ChatGPT ‘think’? Psychology and neuroscience crack open AI large language models

Training models on a large body of scientific information also give them a much better ability to reason about scientific topics, says Wang, who co-created S2ORC, a data set based on 81.1 million academic papers. The data set was originally developed for text mining — applying analytical techniques to find patterns in data — but has since been used to train LLMs.

The trend of buying high-quality data sets is growing. This year, the Financial Times has offered its content to ChatGPT developer OpenAI in a lucrative deal, as has the online forum Reddit, to Google. And given that scientific publishers probably view the alternative as their work being scraped without an agreement, “I think there will be more of these deals to come,” says Wang.

Information secrets

Some AI developers, such as the Large-scale Artificial Intelligence Network, intentionally keep their data sets open, but many firms developing generative-AI models have kept much of their training data secret, says Baack. “We have no idea what is in there,” he says. Open-source repositories such as arXiv and the scholarly database PubMed of abstracts are thought to be “very popular” sources, he says, although paywalled journal articles probably have their free-to-read abstracts scraped by big technology firms. “They are always on the hunt for that kind of stuff,” he adds.

Proving that an LLM has used any individual paper is difficult, says Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, a computer scientist at Imperial College London. One way is to prompt the model with an unusual sentence from a text and see whether the output matches the next words in the original. If it does, that is good evidence that the paper is in the training set. But if it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean that the paper wasn’t used — not least because developers can code the LLM to filter responses to ensure they don’t match training data too closely. “It takes a lot for this to work,” he says.

Robo-writers: the rise and risks of language-generating AI

Another method to check whether data are in a training set is known as membership inference attack. This relies on the idea that a model will be more confident about its output when it is seeing something that it has seen before. De Montjoye’s team has developed a version of this, called a copyright trap, for LLMs.

To set the trap, the team generates sentences that look plausible but are nonsense, and hides them in a body of work, for example as white text on a white background or in a field that’s displayed as zero width on a webpage. If an LLM is more ‘surprised’ — a measure known as its perplexity — by an unused control sentence than it is by the one hidden in the text, “that is statistical evidence that the traps were seen before”, he says.

Copyright questions

Even if it were possible to prove that an LLM has been trained on a certain text, it is not clear what happens next. Publishers maintain that, if developers use copyrighted text in training and have not sought a licence, that counts as infringement. But a counter legal argument says that LLMs do not copy anything — they harvest information content from training data, which gets broken up, and use their learning to generate new text.

AI is complicating plagiarism. How should scientists respond?

Litigation might help to resolve this. In an ongoing US copyright case that could be precedent-setting, The New York Times is suing Microsoft and ChatGPT’s developer OpenAI in San Francisco, California. The newspaper accuses the firms of using its journalistic content to train their models without permission.

Many academics are happy to have their work included in LLM training data — especially if the models make them more accurate. “I personally don’t mind if I have a chatbot who writes in the style of me,” says Baack. But he acknowledges that his job is not threatened by LLM outputs in the way that those of other professions, such as artists and writers, are.

Individual scientific authors currently have little power if the publisher of their paper decides to sell access to their copyrighted works. For publicly available articles, there is no established means to apportion credit or know whether a text has been used.

Some researchers, including de Montjoye, are frustrated. “We want LLMs, but we still want something that is fair, and I think we’ve not invented what this looks like yet,” he says.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-02599-9

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