Ethical Incentives in Research have a Foundation in Ubuntu

Incentives in research can be described as rewards, gifts or appreciations provided before data collection takes place to build interest or promised or given after data collection to increase response and completion rates. A promise to provide a reimbursement is an incentive. Generally, ethical incentives serve a crucial purpose in research, including but not limited to reciprocity, humanism, relationship building and practical reasons of compensation. The ASWNET wants to emphasize that research is a multi-billion dollar industry, and paying reasonable incentives should be normalised in research, as a reciprocal part necessary for this industry to be sustained. However, there is also the downside to consider.

Types of incentives

• Direct incentives include but are not limited to cash, food, tools, groceries, hampers, purchase vouchers, gift cards, appropriate toys, fees, fares, bills, books, internet or phone cards or clothes. A researcher may offer to provide labour or a service to the participant.
• Indirect incentives include but are not limited to donating to or initiating a community or family project, being co-authors in research or research training so that the participants are able to do their own research in future.

Ubuntu values that support giving incentives

• Reciprocity – if participants are giving us knowledge, is it enough to just say asante, thank you. It is not. We may say the results will help them, but is it always the case. It is a way of giving back to individuals, families and communities.
• Humanism – it is a way of saying we care. At times we drive long distances, buy food, pay research assistants and researchers, as well as those who do analysis and transcription of data but then fail to recognize people who provide the knowledge to us. Unfair. At times the participants have no soap to wash their baby’s nappies or to wash themselves to come to the interview. At times, they do not have food.
• Relational – Building and maintaining relationships and makes communities trust researchers instead of looking at them as exploiters.
• Cultural – incentives are culturally appropriate.
• Decolonising – changing the colonial narrative about research that says research institutions must be the main beneficiaries of research.

What are the benefits of research?

1. Income – pay and grants
2. Patents
3. Prestige
4. Infrastructure e.g. research centres, laboratories
5. Equipment
6. Knowledge
7. Solutions
8. Experience
9. Literature
10. Innovations
11. Capacity building
12. Discoveries

These benefits have gone to those who initiate research and their societies while those who provide the knowledge are often left worse off. This situation can be easily inverted or reserved by ensuring that research participants are the main beneficiaries of any research.

What research says about incentives

• Research and experience of researchers has shown that incentives increase interest rate, response rate and completion rate. Interest rate is the number of people who read research adverts, posters or emails or share it. Response rate is the number of those who attempt to participate in research and completion rate consists of those who complete it.
• Research has shown that incentives are effective, and they are therefore standard practice for many research institutes, governments and ethics boards across the world.
• Some research is demanding psychologically and physically (risk, painful, dis-comfortable and inconveniencing) and can never be compensated for adequately, paying an incentive is a way to say thank you, zikomo. However, the incentive should be appropriate such that people are not encouraged to take unnecessary risk.

Downside

• Potential for inducement – incentives must be ethically thought so that people are not driven or coerced to participate because of the incentive. This is achieved by matching the incentive to the situation and the research. Commercial researchers should ideally incentivize more compared to student research. Another trend could be only those wanting incentives coming up to be researched, which creates bias.
• Other researchers may not have incentives and this can disadvantage them. The emphasis in this case must be put on the inability to incentivize and the importance of the research all together.
• May create a dependence on research incentive, this can be addressed by making the incentive appropriate.
• Incentives may promote colonisation, for example, a researcher bringing white dolls to black children or a researcher on sexuality funding gender change activism.

Strategies and options for social work and development

• Have an Incentives Policy.
• Embed Ubuntu in your research ethics.
• Teach students the culturally appropriateness of ethical incentives.
• Train members of ethics boards on this issue.
• For children, incentives should be provided through their parents or adults members of the family or in their presence.
• In most cases, not everyone can get an incentive, for fairness, ask the community for suggestions or do a raffle.
• Form a temporary advisory committee to support you on ethics, including incentives.
• Get ethics advice from the African Independent Ethics Committee (AIEC).
• Do a baliano, which is a consultation process that involves asking selected people their opinions about an issue or question on a rotational basis until consensus is reached. For example, asking the question ‘Should we give incentives in this research, How much? In a baliano, the participants should not be in one place, otherwise it becomes a dare.
• Refer to guidance from national laws or institutional policies.

Conclusion

Ethical incentives are crucial in research, and the future of research. Giving incentives (or not) should be discussed at the planning staged and appropriately communicated to everyone involved. It is important in the planning to review what that particular community consider to be appropriate.

African Independent Ethics Committee (AIEC)