The Research Fairness Initiative: Filling a critical gap in global research ethics

Abstract

2017 marked the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Code. The ethics of research with human beings has been shaped by the simplicity of its core logic, i.e., that the voluntary consent of research participants is sacrosanct and, when given, creates profound obligations of care and respect on the part of researchers. But there are other aspects of the global research enterprise that warrant more deliberate ethical scrutiny. One of these is the fairness of research collaborations and partnerships and the many practical challenges that make fair partnerships difficult to achieve. Corruption in governments and institutions, unequal access to research funding among researchers and research institutions, and enormous disparities in institutional capacity to support research partnerships are just some of the factors that present obstacles to fair partnerships between high income country (HIC) and low and middle income country (LMIC) partners, and within LMICs and HICs alike. Serious attention to these structural disparities, and the ways they shape the ethical character of the research enterprise, is long overdue. Achieving fairness in research partnerships is, in essence, a complex policy and management challenge. Against this backdrop, COHRED has developed and pilot-tested the Research Fairness Initiative (RFI) with several leading research institutions around the world. The RFI was designed as a tool for promoting self-reflection on, and public reporting of, institutional practices and policies related to research partnerships to create a continuous improvement process for research collaborations. Here, we report promising preliminary results of the RFI’s impact, including TDR-WHO’s recent publication of its first RFI report. The RFI provides a pragmatic strategy to explicitly address fairness in research partnerships as a fundamental requirement of the ethics of research.