Speaker 1: Ethics in Research Ethics in research is important as it provides researchers with ethical principles or guidelines for the successful conduct of research. But first, what is ethics? Broadly defined, ethics is the morality of a human act. By morality, we mean the rightness or wrongness of a human act. Generally speaking, ethics is concerned with what is good for the people and the society as a whole. Thus, ethics really matters because it urges us to do good to others and take responsibility of what we do. As a branch of philosophy that concerns itself with questions of how people ought to act, ethics therefore provides rules that govern the society as a whole. This explains why behaving ethically means doing the right thing at the right time. In research, ethics provides guidelines for the responsible conduct of research. Moreover, ethics allows researchers and scholars to further educate themselves and monitor their activities in the conduct of research so as to ensure a high ethical standard. Now it must be noted that aside from the fact that researchers must ensure that research subjects or participants are not placed in harm's way, they need to be reminded that they have the moral obligation to provide maximum benefits to the participants. This means that researchers need not think only of their own interest while they conduct the research. It is for this reason that researchers must be guided by ethical principles in the conduct of the research to maintain research integrity and avoid research misconduct. As we can see, there are acceptable and unacceptable conduct of research, especially when humans and animals are involved. Needless to say, research misconduct can lead to dire consequences if ignored. Let's consider, for example, the famous Nazi human experimentation. As is well known, the Nazi human experimentation was a series of medical experiments on a large number of concentration camp prisoners, including children, conducted by Nazi Germany. As is well known, during the Nazi regime in Germany, Nazi medical doctors forced concentration camp prisoners to participate in the experiment. In fact, the prisoners did not willingly volunteer to participate in the experiment and no consent was given for the procedures. As records show, the experiments had resulted in trauma, disfigurement, permanent disability and death. Some of the famous experiments that the Nazi medical doctors conducted in the prisoners include sterilization and fertilization experiments, head injury experiments, mustard gas experiments, freezing experiments, malaria experiments, experiments on twins, and bones, muscles and nerve transplantation experiments. Now here are some ethical principles that guide research. Honesty. Researchers ought to honestly report data and results of the study, including the methods and procedures employed in data gathering, as well as publication status. Thus, researchers should not falsify, fabricate, and misrepresent data and results. Objectivity. Researchers should uphold objectivity and scientific rigor at all times. Thus, researchers should strive to avoid all forms of bias in research, such as bias in experimental design, data analysis and interpretation, peer review process, grant writing, and other facets of research. Confidentiality. Researchers should always uphold the principle of confidentiality. One way of effectively doing this is to protect confidential communications, such as papers or grants submitted for publications, patient records, and the like. Competence. Researchers are supposed to be knowledgeable and experts in their own discipline or field of specialization. In short, researchers should be competent scholars. Thus, they ought to maintain and improve their professional competence and expertise through lifelong education and learning. More importantly, they ought to take steps to promote competence in science. Integrity. Researchers ought to keep their promises and honor agreements, such as agreements with donors and research participants. Thus, researchers need to strive for consistency in thought and action. Legality. Research always has a legal dimension. Thus, researchers ought to obey laws and relevant institutional and governmental policies. Maturity and Openness. Knowledge is supposed to be free. Hence, researchers must willingly share data, results, ideas, and resources. They must also be open to constructive criticisms and new ideas. Respect for Intellectual Property. Researchers ought to honor copyrights, patents, and other forms of intellectual property. Thus, they should not use methods, data, and results owned by other researchers or scholars without permission or proper acknowledgement. More importantly, researchers should avoid plagiarism at all times. Wasteful Publication. Researchers need to publish in order to advance knowledge and scholarships and not just advance one's own career. They also need to avoid wasteful publication, such as publishing in predatory journals and duplicative publication. Non-Discrimination. Researchers ought to avoid all forms of discrimination against colleagues and students on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, and other factors that are related to scientific competence and integrity. For this reason, researchers ought to respect their colleagues and treat them fairly. Senior researchers also need to help educate, mentor, and advise students. Senior researchers, therefore, have to promote the welfare of their students and allow them to make their own decisions. Human Subjects Protection. Researchers should respect human dignity, privacy, and autonomy at all times. When conducting research on human subjects, researchers should take precautionary measures to minimize, if not completely avoid, harms and risks. They also need to maximize the benefits that participants may get from the results of the study. For instance, if a researcher discovers a cure for a particular disease through her research on indigenous plants, a reasonable part of the patent should go to the indigenous community or communities where the plants are located. Animal Care. In recent years, we have what we call animal rights, thanks to the efforts of animal rights advocates. For this reason, researchers should respect animal rights at all times. As a result, they ought to show utmost care for animals when using them in research. Researchers, therefore, should not conduct unnecessary or poorly designed animal experiments. Social Responsibility. As already emphasized, researchers should conduct research not only for the advancement of their own career, but for the good of society as a whole. Thus, researchers should strive to promote social good and mitigate social harms.