Research that involves human subjects (also known as people), or even human tissue will often raise unique ethical, legal and social issues.

Research ethics is specifically interested in the analysis of ethical issues that are raised when people are involved, and even the most experienced of researchers find the process of getting a favourable ethical opinion, valuable and frustrating!

This week Megan O’Hare speaks with Yvette Vermeer a PhD student from UCL, James Fletcher a Teaching Fellow at King’s College and Danielle Wilson a Clinical Research Operational Manager at Oxford University Hospitals and also Vice Chair of your local research ethics panel. Discussing the challenges, benefits and giving tips and advice for Early Career Researchers navigating this process.

There are three objectives in research ethics:

1. The first objective is to protect human participants.

2. The second is to ensure that research is conducted in a way that serves interests of individuals, groups and/or society as a whole.

3. Last of all, the third objective is to examine specific research activities and projects for their ethical soundness, looking at issues such as the management of risk, protection of confidentiality and the process of informed consent.

To see more topics on ethics from our website visit https://www.dementiaresearcher.nihr.ac.uk/?s=ethics&submit=Go