Regulating Research

Abstract

Effective research ethics review must retain its independence from corporate interests. Institutionalized risk aversion can hinder scientific advance. The task of research ethics review processes is to safeguard researchers and their subjects/participants by enhanced risk awareness. Ethics and integrity are difficult to separate, overlapping issues of concern. The maintenance of ethical practice and scientific integrity relies upon an effective partnership between all stakeholders in research. To ensure equitable treatment of data gathering, management, and communication, the definition of what constitutes research should be broadened. But the problem of how to regulate or monitor practices of agencies across the research “spectrum” remains. Large data gathering corporations remain protective of their supposed self-regulations. Science and politics, and policymaking, are inextricably linked, which further enhance the responsibilities of scientists to fully understand and engage with the consequences of their research.