Research Responsibility Agreement

A tool to support ethical research

Bibliographic Data

ID21787668
AuthorsMelanie Murdock (0000-0002-9003-6343, McMaster University, corresponding author), Stephanie G Erickson (0000-0003-0081-7830, McMaster University)
Year2023
Volume19
Issue3
Pages288-311
Publication date2023-07-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueResearch Ethics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1747-0161 • E-ISSN: 2047-6094
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/17470161231166600
OpenAlexW4362697961
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited13

When engaging in community-based research, it is important to consider ethical research practices throughout the project. While current research practices require many investigators to obtain approval from an ethics review board before starting a project, more is required to ensure that ethical principles are applied once the investigations begin and after the investigations are complete. In response to this concern, as expressed by workers at a feminist non-profit during a community placement, we developed a tool to foster both greater ethical and feminist research practice in community-based research. Using feminist theories, methodologies, and concepts such as epistemic justice, epistemic trust, and coauthorship, a tool was developed to support researchers and other collaborators in building relationships of reciprocity. This tool, called the Research Responsibility Agreement (RRA) invites all members of a research project to explicitly reflect on their role in the research, their relationships with other collaborators, their responsibility to contributing meaningfully in the project, and their plans to remain accountable to one another. In doing so, the RRA adds to existing tools that support ethical research by sharing explicit reflections from all collaborators on how to prevent harm and by asking them to reflect on ethical practices beyond the initial stages of the project. The RRA also encourages greater engagement from researchers and collaborators toward building meaningful relationships with each other, and with participants, to work together in advancing social change. As a practical tool that promotes reflection, that builds relationships, and that holds all parties accountable to ethical and feminist research practices, the RRA has the potential to generate impactful change in community-based research projects and beyond. While the RRA is tailored to community-based research, it can be applied widely to any research project and has the potential to revolutionize how research relationships are built across disciplines

Economic Justice · Engineering ethics · Harm · Political science · Public relations · Research ethics · Social science · Sociology · Engineering · Ethics in Clinical Research · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Psychology · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access