Page 47 - Academic and Research Book_WEB

In 1974, the US Congress passed the National Research Act and set up the Office of Protection of
Research Risks (OPRR). This, over time, produced the Common Rule adopted by all federal agencies
that mandated the setting up of institutional review boards that examine all research that involves
working with human subjects and animals (ch. 4). 1
Professional associations like the British Sociological Association (BSA, 2017), have periodically
revised ethical codes for sociological research. It was only in 2005 that The Economic and Social
Research Council (ESRC) in the UK came up with a framework for guidelines for social science
research (ESRC, 2015). The Norwegian National Research Ethics Committees’ Guidelines was
published in 2006 (NESH, 2006). In 2015 a report was published as part of the project “Stakeholders
Acting Together on the Ethical Impact Assessment of Research and Innovation – SATORI” of the
European Commission (SATORI, 2015). The report on ethics assessment, pointed out, “Ethical
guidance and standard setting in the social sciences is largely in the domain of national and
international professional associations” and are not subject to national or international regulatory
norms. In its conclusion, the report states

…a field or discipline-specific approach is needed. While basic principles and issues – such as
avoiding harm and doing good, informed consent, privacy and confidentiality – are equally as
important in social sciences as they are in biomedicine, the nature of risk and ways of avoiding
it are significantly different due to different objects and methods of research (SATORI, 2015
:22)

Clearly, the need for comprehensive and elaborate codes of ethics for social science research is self-
evident and well-established. Without codification it is difficult to implement ethical conduct. Further,
with the growing dimension of international collaborations in social sciences, and the increasing use
of multi-method research and the development in analytical methods using Artificial Intelligence and
machine learning, the need to establish and recognize a common set of ethical practices has become
more urgent (Wassenaar and Corbella, 2005).

Status of Research Ethics in Social Sciences in India

Surprisingly, the codification of ethics in social sciences has not received much traction in India. Not
many universities have ethical guidelines for social science research. The Indian Council for Social
Science Research (ICSSR) does not have such guidelines either. The University Grants Commission’s
Research Development and Innovation Programs Implementation Guidelines (UGC, 2017), deals with
a long list of areas, but with little elaboration. Under the section on research ethics it simply states:

The higher education institutions receiving the UGC research funding are required to have
a Responsible Conduct of Research Guideline and an instruction program to instruct the re-
searchers about the guideline.( ibid., p. 24).
It lists the following areas that should be covered by the institutions:

1. Data acquisition, management, sharing, and ownership;

2. Supervisor/trainee responsibilities;
3. Publication practices and responsible authorship;
4. Peer review;
5. Research collaboration;
6. Research involving human subjects;

36 | University Grants Commission