Promoting and practicing ethical research that includes the people who live in the area today is as important to the archaeological team as learning more about the lives of the ancient inhabitants.
As the pandemic has progressed, so has scientists’ understanding of why masks matter and how best to protect against COVID.
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Research ethics focus on avoiding wrongdoing, having been developed largely in response to biomedical scandals. Climate change puts the onus on researchers to add ‘do good’ to ‘do no harm’ principles.
Studying ancient DNA in Africa is valuable for understanding human evolution, population migrations, and human history locally, regionally and globally.
Instead of returning to the northern research status quo, researchers should make community health and well-being the top priority. Above: Nain, Nunatsiavut.
Christina Goldhar
Summer 2021 is too soon for southern-based researchers and travellers to return to northern, Indigenous communities in the wake of COVID-19, for research fieldwork or leisure.
No-one wants our children to be used as research guinea pigs. High standards of ethical oversight are needed to ensure no child is exposed to possible harm.
Academic publishing is often linked to promotions and bonuses.
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The government has breached the public’s trust and its own privacy policy by using Medicare data about Australians’ prescribing habits to recruit participants for a study.
Not everyone trusts that science will bring benefits to society.
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In Australia, the next government will need to meet the challenge of refreshing the social licence between science, government and the many and diverse communities that make up our nation.
Nazi leadership saw medical and pharmaceutical research as a front-line tool to contribute to the war effort.
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Four months ago a researcher claimed he had used the tool CRISPR to edit the genomes of twin girls. Now prominent researchers and ethicists are calling for a temporary halt to this sort of work.
It’s not always clear where human organs come from in research papers.
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International standards ban publication of research that involves any biological material from executed prisoners, that lacks human research ethics committee approval and that lacks consent of donors.
China recently became the first country to land on the far side of the moon.
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Researchers who fly in and out of a developing country only for research samples, with little involvement of local scientists, are practising helicopter research.
Money doesn’t grow in flasks – scientists have to find funds outside the lab.
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Money always seems tight for university scientists. A sociologist conducted hundreds of interviews to see how they think about funding sources and profit motives for basic and applied research.
Park guards view maps and photos of high-altitude glaciers – information that can be shared with local communities dealing with changing water levels.
Anne Toomey
Science can’t just stay in the ivory tower. But what does impact really mean and how does it happen? A study of more than a decade of ecological fieldwork projects in Bolivia suggests a better way.
Working out ethical implications forces students to explain what may be vaguely defined plans in a concrete form.
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Ethical review is often seen as a barrier to research and innovation within universities, but it can be constructive. More attention should be paid to the potential benefits of the process.
What’s your ‘street race’?
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The upcoming census, like many before it, will boil complex information on race, ethnicity and ancestry into just two questions. That leaves a lot of important information out of the data.