The role of research ethics committees, and research ethics issues more broadly are often not viewed in the context of the development of scientific methods and the academic community. This topic piece seeks to redress this gap. I begin with a brief outline of the changes we experience within the social sciences before exploring in more detail…

Ethical decision-making is inherent to the research ethics committee (REC) deliberation process. While ethical codes, regulations, and research standards are indispensable in guiding this process, decision-making is nonetheless susceptible to nonrational factors that can undermined the quality, consistency, and perceived fairness REC decisions. In…

This paper presents the best practices used by institutional review boards (IRBs) and human research protections programs (HRPPs) to prepare online graduate student investigators for human research protections specific to research within online graduate degree programs or where research supervisors are not proximal to graduate student…

This is a reflexive account of carrying out 'dirty research' on "cis" women's experiences of working as erotic dancers while at university in the UK. Focusing on the recruitment process, I discuss how universities avoided becoming 'subjects' of research by blocking the study and labelling it 'extremely sensitive' or 'inappropriate'. By…

Contemporary North-South research collaborations are fraught with power relations originating in colonialism. Debates about research ethics have tended to turn around the "procedural ethics" formal model and the "everyday ethics" practical model. We build on that to suggest a second debate that scrutinises ethics and power…