Session 5

B1 Key Ethical Principles in Protecting Research Subjects: Accommodating Research Ethics from Global South

At the core of humankind is the quest to seek solutions to issues surrounding humanity. Research is thus used to understand real-life situations, study effective treatments, investigate behaviors, a way of improving lives, and a way of advancing human existence. Also, at the coalface of advancing humanity, is the nexus between, ethics, human rights, legality, and research development. This led to, research ethics being at the forefront of social research and human research, notwithstanding the ethical considerations in animal research. Accommodating research ethics played a major role in the field of research since 1900 when certain disciplines emerged. The curiosity of testing so many things on humans and animals were conducted without sensitivity to the subjects that were used. This led to research professionals conducting research without obtaining permission from the participants nor being concerned about the negative impact as outcome results. However, the first establishment of the code in 1948 emphasized the individual’s choice of absolute participation and the rule out of harm to participants. This paves the way to the roots of sound ethical considerations across all disciplines. The declaration of 1946 helped to govern international research globally and put emphasis on rules for research and focused on clinical care. Therefore, there can be ethical concerns at every step of the research process (Bickman and Rog, 2009). The consensus by researchers is the need to protect research participants at all costs (Creswell and Creswell, 2018). Even if a research idea is valuable to humanity, it does not justify violating the human rights or dignity of the study subjects. Bhandari (2022) outlines research ethics as a set of ideologies that guide research designs and practices. Bhandari further suggests that scientists and researchers must always adhere to the outlined set code of conduct before collecting data from people. Scholars unanimously indicate that adhering to research ethics protects research subjects from permanent or excessive harm either inadvertent or not, increases research validity and credibility, and helps in maintaining academic validity and credibility. Research ethics moreover ensures that participation in studies is voluntary, informed, and safe for research subjects (Bhandari, 2022). Thus, defying research ethics will also lower the credibility of the research which would then make it hard for others to trust the data if the ethical research methods are morally questionable. Literature shows that, although researchers have the obligation to protect the research subjects, participants equally have an important role to play in the relationship between the researcher and the research subject. This is where one’s rights become the others’ obligation. With such, the National Research Act was passed in 1974 to protect human subjects from human harm. If all these are accommodated in research ethics it would help to promote sound methods that are used to protect the anonymity and confidentiality of the participants, and all human rights will be protected, (Austad, 2009). Session papers can therefore address some but not limited to the following ethical issues: (1) Cultural sensitivity in research ethics. (2) Ethics privacy and confidentiality. (3) Ethics and Professional responsibility. (4) Elements of informed consent. (5) Managing dual relationships in research ethics. (6) Ethical consideration in the representation of cultures in research. (7) Gender /Racial sensitivity and research ethics. (8) Ethical dilemmas in human research. (9) Morality Vs Ethics in human research. (10) Researchers’ obligation in Research. (11) Participants’ rights in Research. (12) Research protocol in the research design. (13) Ethical considerations in conducting research on sexual assault victims. (14) Research Ethics Committees and Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). (15) Data management in research. (16) Plagiarism. (17) Spirituality ethics and society. (18) Ethics and spirituality. (19) Ethical hacker. (20) Ethics Vs Obligation to Sponsors and Funders. (21) Conflict of Interest. (22) Cross-National Research and Ethical Issues. (23) Publication Ethics. (24) Scientific Misconduct (25) Research with Minors; (27) Risk of Invention; (28) Ethics of Emerging Technologies.