Social Science Gets the Ethics Treatment: Research governance and ethical review

Abstract

The paper examines the current provision for ethical review within the social sciences and considers how existent structures could be improved to protect human research subjects in accordance with international guidelines and regulation. This paper examines the current regulation of social science in the form of professional guidelines, peer review, funding application procedures and steering/advisory groups, and compares these processes with the independent ethical review currently required for health research. This paper also addresses the concepts of ‘risk’ and regulation by comparing the provision of review processes for health and non-health based research. The authors question the distinctions made between different types of medical research which represent epidemiological research, for example, as non-intrusive thus creating a hierarchy of research which results in social science researchers slipping through the ethical review net.