Acting Ethically and with Integrity for Research Subjects and Participants

Abstract

Different research subjects or participants raise different concerns in terms of how they are accessed, recruited, and treated before, during, and after the research engagement. This chapter highlights some of the ethical issues that arise in the relationship between researchers and the researched that are explored in further depth in this section of the handbook. While research ethics must take the participant in research as the focus of harm minimization and risk mitigation, the many hidden assumptions about the subjects of research must be made less latent: they rarely can be assumed to “typify” or be representative of the population category of which they are attributed membership, nor should the category be assumed to be homogeneous, nor necessarily more vulnerable than population members not being researched. The expectations of researcher and the requirements of research ethics committees must strive to move beyond conventional assumptions about how study subjects should be treated at the same time as ensuring their autonomy and rights are respected.