Building Equitable Partnerships in International Research: Q & A

Doris Schroeder, Samuel Ujewe, Kate Chatfield (Editor ‘Research Ethics’), Syntia Nchangwi, Charles Weijer were panelists for the webinar, Building Equitable Partnerships in International Research. In this post find answers they provided for questions we did not have time to discuss during the webinar with links to relevant open-access articles. Also see this guest post by panelists: “Equitable Research Partnerships instead of Helicopter Research.”

Audience Questions:

I sought ethical approval from my host (global) and home (global south) universities. There were ethical dilemmas, and the decision process was not easy. Which ethical approval should take precedence?

What advice would you give if there appears to be a discrepancy over certain ethical issues between two ethics boards in two different institutions over the same research project?

Panel Response:

Research ethics is unlike logic. It is not always possible, even for experts with decades of experience, to determine which study set-up is ethically ideal. It is much more likely that experts in research ethics and experienced research ethics committee members will be able to say what is unethical. If two research ethics committees (RECs) or Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) in two different countries disagree, this could have a variety of reasons, all of which would influence, which approval should take precedence, if any. Some examples.

Example 1 - The global south university requires community approval, which the global north university does not require. In this case, the global south university has knowledge of local requirements, which the global north university does not have. Hence, their study conditions should take precedence.

Example 2 – The global north university requires GDPR adherence, which the global south university does not. This is not a matter of precedence or not, the legal requirements in each country have to be respected and REC conditions may look different as a result.

Example 3 – One of the two RECs might face extreme resource shortages. This is not necessarily the global south REC. During COVID-19 many global north RECs faced serious resource issues. It might than be the case that the well-resourced REC provided more in-depth and useful conditions than the under-resourced REC, which should therefore take precedence.

Example 4 – RECs make mistakes, e.g. mistaking an informal consultation for a formal interview. If there is a discrepancy of this nature, where one REC interprets a study correctly and the other REC does not, one can usually find diplomatic ways of aligning the REC conditions.

Example 5 – The REC members (and/or the researchers) of the global north university are not familiar with ethical challenges and the potential for ethics dumping when their researchers conduct studies in the global south. The Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings can be used by researchers when designing studies and REC members when reviewing protocols to raise awareness and help prevent issues from arising.    

These are just a few examples. In our experience, REC chairs are often willing to talk to counterparts in other countries if they have to approve the same study. In this case, it is good to start this dialogue as early as possible. As noted during the webinar, it may also be beneficial for global south researchers to see the paperwork produced for the global north REC first, before they produce their own paperwork. For instance, it might make sense to start from one informed consent form, which the better resourced researchers draft first and which is then amended (for instance to take into account local languages, local illiteracy levels, local knowledge).

Related open-access readings from SAGE Research Ethics:

Chatfield, K., Schroeder, D., Guantai, A., Bhatt, K., Bukusi, E., Adhiambo Odhiambo, J., Cook, J., & Kimani, J. (2021). Preventing ethics dumping: the challenges for Kenyan research ethics committees. Research Ethics, 17(1), 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120925064

Dove, E. S., & Garattini, C. (2018). Expert perspectives on ethics review of international data-intensive research: Working towards mutual recognition. Research Ethics, 14(1), 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117711972

 Audience Question:

What is the problem in making the ethics approval of all partners mandatory for the study? What Principal Investigator (PI) has to go through in her/his own country in terms of ethics approval should remain common even if the study is taking place in the global south...what are your views?

 Panel Response:

This question assumes that perfect knowledge is available to all research ethics committees (RECs) involved and that they all adhere to a universal research ethics. It would mean that things like ‘community approval’, which are required in many indigenous communities before research can start would also have to take place in downtown Berlin or be scrapped in the Kalahari.

What helps in such situations is to look at the problem from a values-perspective. With the Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings, we developed a four values framework with research stakeholders from around the world as well as two vulnerable communities in Africa, who might face exploitation by researchers, if not protected. The values were fairness, respect, care and honesty. It is the value of ‘respect’, which can be violated if what counts in one’s own country is meant to count everywhere. 

I’m wondering if someone can recommend an ethics paradigm for situations in which research doesn’t rise to being reviewed by institutional review boards because it’s using, for instance, compiled public data (e.g. social media tweets/postings) by or about vulnerable communities which doesn’t always constitute “human subjects” under the law or local institutional policies

We are not sure how public data about vulnerable communities would look if they did not count as data about human participants. Will individuals not be identifiable? Will these data be like census data? If individuals can be identified this counts as personal data and their inclusion in a study should be reviewed by a research ethics committee (REC) or an institutional review board. There are only some exceptions, such as official announcements of politicians, where it is clear that the person’s statements are so openly in the public domain that they can be used for research without REC approval because the whole purpose of political statements is that they enter the public domain widely.

If a REC decides that a study does not need ethical approval, that’s normally a good sign that there are no ethical issues. However, with the fast moving field of research ethics and social media data, it might also be that the REC is not up-to-date. New types of research can push at the boundaries of research ethics policies and procedures; researchers and REC members can find themselves without clear principles or guidance for how to conduct research ethically.

In response to questions that are similar to yours, many different types of organisations are in the process of developing and updating guidance. For instance, in the UK, the British Psychological Society have recently published ethics guidelines for internet mediated research based upon their four main principles: respect for the autonomy, privacy and dignity of individuals and communities; scientific integrity; social responsibility; and maximising benefits and minimising harm.      

Related open-access readings from SAGE Research Ethics:

Flick, C. (2016). Informed consent and the Facebook emotional manipulation study. Research Ethics, 12(1), 14–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016115599568

Stommel, W., & Rijk, L. de. (2021). Ethical approval: none sought. How discourse analysts report ethical issues around publicly available online data. Research Ethics, 17(3), 275–297. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016120988767 (See Methodspace interview with the authors here.)

Sugiura, L., Wiles, R., & Pope, C. (2017). Ethical challenges in online research: Public/private perceptions. Research Ethics, 13(3–4), 184–199. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016116650720

Taylor, J., & Pagliari, C. (2018). Mining social media data: How are research sponsors and researchers addressing the ethical challenges? Research Ethics, 14(2), 1–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117738559

 Audience Questions:

What must I do in the case of completing my university degree, in case there is no institutional ethics review board in my university. How do I get one as a student researcher?

If a university requires the carrying out of research as part of their degree programs, they need to provide an institutional review board or research ethics committee. Institutions cannot make research a part of their requirements for a degree and then not provide the infrastructure to get approval, unless this research creates no ethical issues, such as philosophical research on the meaning of ethics and empathy in Arthur Schopenhauer’s books. If human participants are involved in research, for instance through interviews, the institution must provide a way to obtain ethics approval.

 Is there any framework for embedding equitable partnerships in funding schemes?

Panel Response:

The framework we are aware of, which has been embedded in funding schemes is an ethics code specifically designed to tackle inequities in international research across power imbalances. The previously mentioned Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings is a mandatory reference document for the main European funding agency, the European Commission and its Horizon Europe program. When the European Commission made the decision to apply the code within its framework programs in June 2018, Nature reported about it as follows: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05616-w. Since then other research funders have followed, see adopters under: https://www.globalcodeofconduct.org.

Learn more with these relevant resources! Panelist Doris Schroeder is the lead author of the Global Code of Conduct for Research in Resource-Poor Settings (2018) which is a mandatory reference document for Horizon Europe and now used in over 50 lower income countries. She is a co-editor on Equitable Research Partnerships: A Global Code of Conduct to Counter Ethics Dumping, which you can downloaded free in PDF or EPub formats.