Key Issues: Politics and Ethics Partnership Research

Very often there are not easy answers to ethical questions. Ethical questions are about doing the ‘right’ thing, but what one person thinks is ‘right’ will not be the same as another person. That means you are going to have to talk about ethical questions and make decisions about what you think is right.

You will also have to follow some ‘rules’ about ethics, if you are going to apply for research funding. This is because research funders will expect you to think about ethical questions before you start your project.

You may also have to show your research plan to an ethics committee. These committees will look at your plan and tell you if they think you have made the ‘right’ decisions about ethical questions. If they do not agree with your decisions they may say you are not allowed to do the research. These committees were set up to protect people who you might meet in your research.

The whole of this website is about a question of ethics in research. This is because it is an ethical question to think about who should do research and how. These questions are discussed in the document: What is Partnership Research? We think it is a good idea to get lots of different people with different views working in research. Then we can all learn from what everyone knows. We also think it is a good idea for researchers to work with service users to think about good ways of doing research. If we all work together we hope that we can write reports that will be easy to read and helpful to service users.

Lots of research funders now believe that service users should be more involved in research. Some examples are the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the Department of Health and the National Lottery's Big Lottery Fund. The Economic and Social Research Council funded this website. It can still be quite difficult to apply for research funding. This means that some people feel that service users are still not really important enough or they would make the process easier.

Here are some other ethical questions you may want to think about.

Planning Partnership Research
When do you begin to work with your research partners? As we have said in another document (Partnerships: Questions and Challenges), Fisher (2002) says, much 'partnership' work still involves "users being asked to join a process where the research issue and the methods have largely been defined beforehand, and where the outcome remains under the control of researchers" (p.306). This can mean that users are not fully involved.

It is a good idea to work with people who you would like to do research with on lots of different projects if you can. This way everyone can get to know each other and feel comfortable with each other. Then, hopefully, everyone will be able to give their ideas for research.

We have already talked about ethics committees. Sometimes ethics committees can seem to make doing research more difficult. This is because they want you to say what you will be doing before you do it. When you are doing partnership research, you often make decisions as you go along.

Some ethics committees may not see partnership research as 'proper' research and you may have to give lots of reasons why it is a good idea.

Contracts/formal agreements and partnership working
It may be a good idea to write a contract or agreement before you begin your research in your partnership. This contract can say things about who will do the work and what you agreed you will do with the research when it is finished. For example, are you going to write a report? Who will write it and who is it for? Can you think of other ways of letting people know about your research, like conferences, or using photographs or drawings? If you are not getting paid for working on the research you might like to talk to your partners about other things you would like to get from the research (see Benefits and payments). You might also agree to look again at the contract in a few weeks/months time in case anyone wants to change anything.

Doing research together for who?
We have already said that this website is all about who should do research and how. Another important ethical question about research is who is research for ? Is it for the people who have done it so they can learn more? Is it for managers and others who make decisions about people's lives so that they can make better decisions? Is it for the people who have joined in the research so that they can see what everyone else said?

Different pieces of research will be done for different reasons and you will want to discuss the reasons why you are doing research. Your answers to this question will help you think about the best ways of telling people about your research.

Ethics, methods and partnership research

Some people think that some methods of doing research are more ethical than other methods. For example, some people think it is a better idea to get to know people and interview them than send them a questionnaire. This will partly be about what sorts of questions you are asking. At the same time, it is a good idea to think about how ‘sensitive’ the research is. You may decide it is the right thing to get to know people so that they can trust you. In this way you may also learn more (see Comparing qualitative and quantitative research).

References
Fisher, M. (2002) 'The Role of Service-Users in Problem Formulation and Technical Aspects of Social Research', Social Work Education, 21, 3, p305-312.

Harding, S. (1997)