TSRF Guide to applying ethical research principles

Scotland's Third Sector Research Forum has developed a guide to applying ethical research principles.

Scotland’s Third Sector Research Forum (TSRF) has launched a new resource to support research active third sector organisations to navigate ethical considerations (this link will take you away from our website).

It is an accessible guide which outlines 5 ethical research principles: need, integrity, accountability, confidentiality, and safety. It is about safeguarding for third sector practitioners, researchers and those undertaking research activities in the third sector, and those they work with.

The guide is very practical, not creating more bureaucracy, but taking you through what everyone should be doing in practice. It includes illustrative examples of good and ‘not so good’ practice to illuminate some of the pitfalls that can be easily and unintentionally stumbled upon and case studies to describe ethical decision making in practice.

Whether you are starting your research project, or well into it, or writing a research proposal or an ethics policy for your organisation this guide will be useful.

The guide launched for consultation at the TSRF conference Researching Well on 17 February 2021 and was finalised in June 2021.

Who is it for?

It is written for researchers and non-researchers working in the third sector to help you know what to do and how, to ensure your research participants and you are safe during the research process.

It will also be helpful to:

• Those working in the third sector who may not identify themselves as researchers but undertake some research activity, such as, setting up focus groups or doing interviews.
• Practitioners in the third sector who evaluate their work.
• Funders who undertake research as well as commission research and evaluations to support good ethical practice of their funded organisations and safeguard recipients of third sector services.
• Scottish Government teams supporting third sector organisations.
• Those providing third sector training and support as an additional resource to signpost trainees to information about good research and safeguarding practice.
• Universities and higher educational institutions working with third sector organisations to signpost third sector partners for a better understanding of the ethics principles that their own ethics committees will be considering.

Be part of this work

TSRF are interested to hear from third sector researchers using the guide. They will publish an accompanying document which will include case studies about how the guide is being used in the third sector. The case studies will be presented at an event in February 2022.

If you would like to be part of this, please email info@evaluationsupportscotland.org.uk

What is TSRF

Scotland’s Third Sector Research Forum brings together third sector, academic and public sector partners to

• promote and share research about and from the third sector
• encourage the use of third sector research to improve policy and practice
• produce resources and deliver events to support third sector researchers and encourage collaboration with academic partners.

Enquiries

If you have any questions, please contact Jane Marryat at jane@evaluationsupportscotland.org.uk

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