Which ethical principles will you adhere to during your Ph D study list and explain briefly?

Research ethics provides guidelines for the responsible conduct of research. In addition, it educates and monitors scientists conducting research to ensure a high ethical standard. The following is a general summary of some ethical principles:

Honesty:

Honestly report data, results, methods and procedures, and publication status. Do not fabricate, falsify, or misrepresent data.

Objectivity:

Strive to avoid bias in experimental design, data analysis, data interpretation, peer review, personnel decisions, grant writing, expert testimony, and other aspects of research.

Integrity:

Keep your promises and agreements; act with sincerity; strive for consistency of thought and action.

Carefulness:

Avoid careless errors and negligence; carefully and critically examine your own work and the work of your peers. Keep good records of research activities.

Openness:

Share data, results, ideas, tools, resources. Be open to criticism and new ideas.

Respect for Intellectual Property:

Honor patents, copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property. Do not use unpublished data, methods, or results without permission. Give credit where credit is due. Never plagiarize.

Confidentiality:

Protect confidential communications, such as papers or grants submitted for publication, personnel records, trade or military secrets, and patient records.

Responsible Publication:

Publish in order to advance research and scholarship, not to advance just your own career. Avoid wasteful and duplicative publication.

Responsible Mentoring:

Help to educate, mentor, and advise students. Promote their welfare and allow them to make their own decisions.

Respect for Colleagues:

Respect your colleagues and treat them fairly.

Social Responsibility:

Strive to promote social good and prevent or mitigate social harms through research, public education, and advocacy.

Non-Discrimination:

Avoid discrimination against colleagues or students on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, or other factors that are not related to their scientific competence and integrity.

Competence:

Maintain and improve your own professional competence and expertise through lifelong education and learning; take steps to promote competence in science as a whole.

Legality:

Know and obey relevant laws and institutional and governmental policies.

Animal Care:

Show proper respect and care for animals when using them in research. Do not conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal experiments.

Human Subjects Protection:

When conducting research on human subjects, minimize harms and risks and maximize benefits; respect human dignity, privacy, and autonomy.

Source:
What is Ethics in Research & Why is it Important? U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

• What is Research Ethics?
• Objectives of Research Ethics:
• Principles of Research Ethics:
  • The general principles of research ethics are:
• Broad Categorization of Principles of Research Ethics:
• Advantages of Research Ethics:
• Limitations of Research Ethics:
• How can we ensure ethics at different steps of research?
• References and For More Information:

What is Research Ethics?

• Ethics are the set of rules that govern our expectations of our own and others’ behavior.
• Research ethics are the set of ethical guidelines that guides us on how scientific research should be conducted and disseminated.
• Research ethics govern the standards of conduct for scientific researchers It is the guideline for responsibly conducting the research.
• Research that implicates human subjects or contributors rears distinctive and multifaceted ethical, legitimate, communal and administrative concerns.
• Research ethics is unambiguously concerned in the examination of ethical issues that are upraised when individuals are involved as participants in the study.
• Research ethics committee/Institutional Review Board [IRB] reviews whether the research is ethical enough or not to protect the rights, dignity and welfare of the respondents.

Objectives of Research Ethics:

• The first and comprehensive objective – to guard/protect human participants, their dignity, rights and welfare .
• The second objective – to make sure that research is directed in a manner that assists welfares of persons, groups and/or civilization as a whole.
• The third objective – to inspect particular research events and schemes for their ethical reliability, considering issues such as the controlling risk, protection of privacy and the progression of informed consent.

The general principles of research ethics are:

Broad Categorization of Principles of Research Ethics:

Broadly categorizing, there are mainly five principles of research ethics:

1. MINIMIZING THE RISK OF HARM

It is necessary to minimize any sort of harm to the participants. There are a number of forms of harm that participants can be exposed to. They are:

• Bodily harm to contributors.
• Psychological agony and embarrassment.
• Social drawback.
• Violation of participant’s confidentiality and privacy.

In order to minimize the risk of harm, the researcher/data collector should:

• Obtain informed consent from participants.
• Protecting anonymity and confidentiality of participants.
• Avoiding misleading practices when planning research.
• Providing participants with the right to withdraw.

2. OBTAINING INFORMED CONSENT 

One of the fundamentals of research ethics is the notion of informed consent.

Informed consent means that a person knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently gives consent to participate in a research.

Informed consent means that the participants should be well-informed about the:

• Introduction and objective of the research
• Purpose of the discussion
• Anticipated advantages, benefits/harm from the research [if any]
• Use of research
• Their role in research
• Methods which will be used to protect anonymity and confidentiality of the participant
• Freedom to not answer any question/withdraw from the research
• Who to contact if the participant need additional information about the research

3. PROTECTING ANONYMITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY

Protecting the anonymity and confidentiality of research participants is an additionally applied constituent of research ethics.

Protecting anonymity:It means keeping the participant anonymous. It involves not revealing the name, caste or any other information about the participants that may reveal his/her identity.

Maintaining confidentiality: It refers to ensuring that the information given by the participant are confidential and not shared with anyone, except the research team. It is also about keeping the information secretly from other people.

4. AVOIDING MISLEADING PRACTICES

• The researcher should avoid all the deceptive and misleading practices that might misinform the respondent.
• It includes avoiding all the activities like communicating wrong messages, giving false assurance, giving false information etc.

5. PROVIDING THE RIGHT TO WITHDRAW

• Participants have to have the right to withdraw at any point of the research.
• When any respondent decides on to withdraw from the research, they should not be stressed or forced in any manner to try to discontinue them from withdrawing.

Apart from the above-mentioned ethics, other ethical aspects things that must be considered while doing research are:

Protection of vulnerable groups of people:

• Vulnerability is one distinctive feature of people incapable to protect their moralities and wellbeing. Vulnerable groups comprise captive populations [detainees, established, students, etc.], mentally ill persons, and aged people, children, critically ill or dying, poor, with learning incapacities, sedated or insensible.
• Their participation in research can be endorsed to their incapability to give an informed consent and to the need for their further safety and sensitivity from the research/researcher as they are in a greater risk of being betrayed, exposed or forced to participate.

 Skills of the researcher:

• Researchers should have the basic skills and familiarity for the specific study to be carried out and be conscious of the bounds of personal competence in research.
• Any lack of knowledge in the area under research must be clearly specified.
• Inexperienced researchers should work under qualified supervision that has to be revised by an ethics commission.

Advantages of Research Ethics:

• Research ethics promote the aims of research.
• It increases trust among the researcher and the respondent.
• It is important to adhere to ethical principles in order to protect the dignity, rights and welfare of research participants.
• Researchers can be held accountable and answerable for their actions.
• Ethics promote social and moral values.
• Promotes the ambitions of research, such as understanding, veracity, and dodging of error.
• Ethical standards uphold the values that are vital to cooperative work, such as belief, answerability, mutual respect, and impartiality.
• Ethical norms in research also aid to construct public upkeep for research. People are more likely to trust a research project if they can trust the worth and reliability of research.

Limitations of Research Ethics:

For subjects:

• Possibilities to physical integrity, containing those linked with experimental drugs and dealings and with other involvements that will be used in the study [e.g. measures used to observe research participants, such as blood sampling, X-rays or lumbar punctures].
• Psychological risks: for example, a questionnaire may perhaps signify a risk if it fears traumatic events or happenings that are especially traumatic.
• Social, legal and economic risks: for example, if personal information collected during a study is unintentionally released, participants might face a threat of judgment and stigmatization.
• Certain tribal or inhabitant groups may possibly suffer from discrimination or stigmatization, burdens because of research, typically if associates of those groups are recognized as having a greater-than-usual risk of devouring a specific disease.
• The research may perhaps have an influence on the prevailing health system: for example, human and financial capitals dedicated to research may distract attention from other demanding health care necessities in the community.

How can we ensure ethics at different steps of research?

The following process helps to ensure ethics at different steps of research:

• Collect the facts and talk over intellectual belongings openly
• Outline the ethical matters
• Detect the affected parties [stakeholders]
• Ascertain the forfeits
• Recognize the responsibilities [principles, rights, justice]
• Contemplate your personality and truthfulness
• Deliberate innovatively about possible actions
• Respect privacy and confidentiality
• Resolve on the appropriate ethical action and be willing to deal with divergent point of view.

References and For More Information:

//dissertation.laerd.com/principles-of-research-ethics.php

//researchethics.ca/what-is-research-ethics/

//www.who.int/ethics/Ethics_basic_concepts_ENG.pdf

//www.niehs.nih.gov/research/resources/bioethics/whatis/index.cfm

//research.ku.edu/sites/research.ku.edu/files/docs/EESE_EthicalDecisionmakingFramework.pdf

//www.who.int/ethics/research/en/

//www.ufrgs.br/bioetica/cioms2008.pdf

//www.who.int/ethics/research/en/#:~:text=WHO%20Research%20Ethics%20Review%20Committee,financially%20or%20technically%20by%20WHO.

//www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/ethics/review_bodies_guide_serg/en/

//www.who.int/ethics/indigenous_peoples/en/index13.html

//www.who.int/bulletin/archives/80[2]114.pdf

//www.who.int/about/ethics

//www.slideshare.net/uqudent/introduction-to-research-ethics

//libguides.library.cityu.edu.hk/researchmethods/ethics#:~:text=Methods%20by%20Subject-,What%20is%20Research%20Ethics%3F,ensure%20a%20high%20ethical%20standard.

//www.apa.org/monitor/jan03/principles

//www.hsj.gr/medicine/what-are-the-major-ethical-issues-in-conducting-research-is-there-a-conflict-between-the-research-ethics-and-the-nature-of-nursing.php?aid=3485

//www.skillsyouneed.com/learn/research-ethics.html

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