ABSTRACT
Detailed ethical review of research is now required before it is undertaken. Indeed, the review of ethical aspects of research is now part of university life in the Western world in a way that did not exist half a century ago. Such ethical review was established first in the field of health, but it is now ubiquitous. In the UK, universities in the first decade of the twenty-first century have established research ethics committees that oversee research in all areas of academic inquiry. Increasingly, postgraduate and undergraduate students undertaking empirical research for dissertations will find themselves undergoing ethical review of their research plans, with requirements to explain and justify the way in which they will conduct research, by producing a research protocol. Strain in Chapter 3 points to the emergence of university research ethics committees as evidence of the extent to which the agenda of ethics has come to permeate university life. There may be truth in this, but as Jarvis suggests in Chapter 2, it is important to be aware of the risks as well as the benefits that these committees pose.
