Research Ethics

Ways of doing research are dramatically changing.  Conducting research used to be considered only a scientist’s privilege; now research is being seen as the community’s business as well. There is an increasing awareness of the importance of being respectful to the rights of participants not only as individuals and also as members of a community that may be affected by research. 

As communities become more involved in research, ethical dilemmas come up at each stage in the research. These dilemmas include questions such as who decides what the research agenda will be, who has the power in the research relationship, how will a partnership be set up and how can it work fairly and who owns data.  All of these issues need to be addressed.

At the University of Massachusetts Lowell, we are working hard to build participatory research partnerships between the university and underserved communities. These tip sheets included in this manual were created as a part of workshops on Ethical Issues in Partnership-based Research.  We hope that you find these tip sheets helpful in addressing some of the ethical questions that emerge in the partnerships.

The following documents are pdf files.  Download Adobe Acrobat reader.

• Research Ethics Tip Sheets (English version)
• Khmer Translation
• Spanish Translation