Introduction
Working in the area of public engagement with research, there was a time when the topic of ‘ethics’ would only be found within quite niche conversations. Over the past few years, ethics has been appearing more and more in the agendas of conferences, events and training right across the sector. We can see ethics as an urgent and widespread issue for those engaging with the public as well as more broadly across research and innovation (R&I).
This has been prompted in large part by shifts in the way the relationship between research, innovation and wider society is viewed, as evident in the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) public engagement strategy. These shifts include a greater valuing of:
- sustained engagement between researchers and specific groups (as distinct from one-off interactions)
- the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion which encourages appreciation of a greater range of voices, especially those currently ‘underrepresented’ in R&I
- the role the public can play as active collaborators in research
All of these intersecting developments bring with them greater considerations for engaging with the public in a more careful, fair and equitable way. In other words, ensuring that our practice is ethical from everyone’s perspectives not just those of the formal R&I system.
A Citizen Researcher, Citizens Researching Together, Bristol, said:
Ethics means doing the right thing.
Learning from the work we fund
As a funder of a broad range of R&I in which the public are involved, as well as being in the privileged position of regularly connecting with people right across the R&I system and beyond, we want to understand what learning can be gathered and shared with others wanting to work with the public in ethical ways.
As one example, UKRI has been supporting the Citizen Science Collaboration Grants, multi-year projects across disciplines in which researchers collaborate with the public as equal partners to produce new knowledge about pressing topics for society, ranging from mental health to air quality in homes. The evaluation we are carrying out of this programme, with our delivery partner The Young Foundation, is revealing a number of core areas common to the learning across projects, one of which is ethics. We have identified two overlapping common challenges which also ring true right across the sector – one about practices and the other procedures.
Firstly, to do collaborations ethically between academic researchers and the public can be challenging and complex. It raises questions over payment for people’s expenses and time, safeguarding, wellbeing, consent and how people are credited in any outputs when they are shared. Imagine you are running an event to collectively design research questions that involves researchers and members of a community group new to engaging with universities. Does everyone in your room feel safe, feel comfortable and importantly feel able to contribute to the conversation on the same level with everyone else?
Several of the UKRI funded projects addressed this by co-producing documents with the public to set out how to work together such as Ancient History, Contemporary Belonging, who produced a ‘code of respect’ with youth researchers. This allowed an iterative process of dealing with dilemmas throughout the project, and individual arrangements dependent on each youth researcher’s preferences and needs.
There are also important issues about who holds most of the power in these collaborations and how this affects the dynamics of relationships. Another of the projects, Citizens Researching Together, Bristol aimed to counter ‘extractivism’: the extraction of knowledge which benefits those outside the community – a key ethical issue in research with communities. They found a range of ways to share the benefits of the work. For example, enabling citizen researchers to become ‘associates’ in the university helped open access to resources, and meant citizens’ expertise could be granted with academic status.
Navigating all of this requires specific knowledge and skills, as we explored with the projects as part of the support they received from UKRI and The Young Foundation. Strong expertise exists in and outside of universities in both academic and supporting roles, as do relevant resources such as toolkits, but many may not be aware of this support and there still remains considerable gaps.
Secondly, the standard procedures of most research institutions to approve research plans are broadly not designed to support collaboration with the public. For instance, the typical requirement to have ethical approval before the project starts, is at odds with the complex and iterative nature of projects where there is a need to be adaptive and responsive throughout. When working with the public, plans and activities rapidly change and therefore ethics need to be continuously revisited, adapted and agreed day-to-day.
A wider challenge is that ethical governance typically sits within research organisations – so they get to dictate what is ‘ethical’ to those in the community who are working with its researchers, further entrenching those unhelpful power dynamics. Finally, there are often many other processes in a research organisation which create their own barriers, including payment and contract systems.
Solving barriers in the system to ethical collaboration
In discussing these challenges, we have identified a number of ways those with some influence, including funders, can help to address them. The evaluation The Young Foundation has carried out with projects, as well as conversations across the sector, has identified several areas with opportunities for change, including:
- ethical procedures, how might the sector develop a governance structure for ethics that is supportive, flexible, and trusting, so that the decision processes about what is ethical become more equitable? How can all processes be set up to allow easier working with people outside the organisation?
- skills and capabilities, how might the sector build capabilities across and beyond the current R&I system so that people are properly equipped to collaborate ethically? How can we build on existing expertise?
- funding, how might the sector enable investment that supports collaborations to take up ethical principles from the outset and throughout?
At UKRI we recognise that we are key players in making this change. We are building on learning from the citizen science projects and our other investments in community-led engagement and research to take steps to better support these approaches so they are used ethically. These include:
- exploring different approaches to funding that support adequate time for relationship building and ensure ethical collaborations
- ensuring appropriate payments to the public such as the Medical Research Council’s new guidance on payment for public partners
- changes to funding policy to include public contributors in formal ‘specialist’ project roles within the UKRI Funding Service
- providing space in the Funding Service for applicants to talk about the ethics (as well as responsible research and innovation of their project
- exploring how to provide support outside of grant funding to help researchers and communities collaborate, including navigating ethics together while building their capabilities for future ethical work
- developing a set of UKRI guidelines on ethical research which includes considerations for working with the public
- sharing our progress and connecting with people across the sector. The aim is to bring together and build on the wide range of existing expertise, good practice, and ongoing work happening right now to tackle the challenges set out in this blog
This blog is based on a discussion paper written by The Young Foundation. In this you can read more on the findings from the UKRI Citizen Science Collaboration Grants and other work, including a rich set of resources from others working on the ethics of public engagement and impact.
Top image: Credit: Goodboy Picture Company, E+ via Getty Images