How to Write a Research Ethics Statement
A research ethics statement is a detailed account of ethics that (1) will be followed when doing research (proposed or pre-research ethics statement) (2) was followed in research (post-research ethics statement). Statements must be written clearly, they must be appropriate or relevant and enough detail must be provided.
Pre-research ethics statement
It is written in the future tense to support a research proposal to a funder, research institution, other researchers, government, partners, community or ethics committee. At times, it is called an ethics plan, proposal or protocol.
Post-research ethics statement
It is written in the past tense to report research to publisher, journal, funder, research institution, other researchers, government, partners, community or ethics committee and in publications for readers. It is a story that shows how ethics were applied.
What to include in ethics statements?
The table below shows major questions writers, reviewers and editors should expect to be in an ethics statement and the items to include in an ethics statement.
| Ethics question or statement | How to respond to this question |
| What is your own ethics standpoint or philosophy? What philosophy are your ethics founded? | For Africa, our ethics are founded on Ubuntu philosophy. In responding to this question, refer to your experience of Ubuntu using first person language. Show the Ubuntu values that your family, community and society have, and how these shape how you do research. Do not be superficial or use colonial language, be yourself. |
| What is or was the gap or rationale or aim for this research? | Describe why this research is or was necessary. Describe benefit for the participants and larger community. Is or was there risk, did it over weigh doing the research? |
| What questions will you ask? | Provide the main questions from your data collection tools. |
| How are permissions, consents and approvals going to be obtained? | Describe step by step how you will reach or reached your participants or respondents. Describe local protocols that will be followed or were followed? Describe the consent and permission seeking process including those who consented and did not consent. Show evidence, for example, attach a permission letter. If you are a researcher from outside Africa, what efforts have you made to ensure that you avoid potential exploitation, dumping of research ethics, power differentials, language and racial differences that may impact this research? Provide evidence to show that the research process got approval from community leaders and ethics committee. Support letters from partners are also useful. |
| What will participants do or what did they do? How is or was harm, distress and burden managed? | Describe what participants are expected to do, step by step, or what they did. This includes how you collected date from them, the tools you. Identify risks and solutions. Describe how psychological, physical, economic or social harm, distress and burden are going to be avoided or how they were managed. |
| How is data going to be collected? | What will the researcher do step by step? |
| How is or was data kept safe and confidential? | It is important to protect the identity of researchers, show how this will be achieved or was achieved. This applies when engaging communities, collecting data, storing data and reporting. |
| Avoid ethics dumping in Africa | If you are a researcher from outside Africa, what efforts have you made to ensure that you avoid potential exploitation, dumping of research ethics, power differentials, language and racial differences that may impact this research? |
| How accessible are the research findings and publications? Findings should be accessible to participants, community, policy makers and other researchers. | How will community or participants know about the results? How will they get access to the publications? Include issues like reporting back to the community through a meeting or workshop, publishing research in local publications, publish summary in local languages, publish results using graphics or audios that are easy to understand and sharing results with policy makers. |
| What is your personal reflection of the ethics applied and your own view of Ubuntu ethics? How does this apply to this research? How do these differ from Western ethics? | End your ethics statement by giving personal views or reflections and restating your Ubuntu ethical principles. Think about Western ethics and write those things that make then different and colonial, if there are similarities, point those out as well. Add recommendations for other researchers. |
Other recommendations
- Ground ethics in the philosophy of your family, community and society.
- Cite local ethics codes, including those of the professional association, as long as they are grounded in Africa philosophy (*some of our philosophies are yet to be decolonised).
- Use of local protocols and getting local permissions (oral or written) should be included in ethics statements.
- Write your statement as a story that flows.
- Use the correct tense, future or past but at times you use present tense if the ethics process is ongoing.
- Subheadings can be avoided for the story to flow, but at times other guidelines require you to use headings.
- Avoid repetition.
- Using first person language is ok.
- Adding your own reflection is ok.
- Avoid citing unnecessarily but you can cite other relevant researchers, ethics guidelines, laws and protocols. Non-written knowledge can be cited.
- Avoid citing ethics books or articles published from a non-African perspective but rather value and support African literature, ethics guidelines, laws and protocols.
- Avoid writing or defining ethics and other words related to ethics, the statement is about actions and why they were necessary.
Eight Basic Ubuntu Ethics in Research
The eight basic ubuntu ethics that we are concerned with in research are:
- Value for Family (unhuri, familyhood)- families are an integral part of African society. While research usually focuses on individuals, these individuals must be viewed as part of families. A full and trusted story usually involves the family.
- Respect for Community (ujamaa, ‘communityhood’)- research should promote African ‘communityhood’, uniting people and using local resources and compensating communities adequately. Local protocols should be respected, recognized and followed.
- Decolonising – for years research languages, ethics, methods, philosophy, epistemology and ontologies have prioritized western knowledge. Present day research must prioritize African perspectives.
- Developmental and capacity building research – funders and researchers, including African governments must be seen to be promoting growth of African research capacity. This means strengthening the work of African researchers and research institutions. Knowledge transfer is a key element when we assess externally driven research.
- Sustainable research – research must build capacity of African researchers and African institutions to research on their own and not to be dependent on people from outside perpetually.
- Justice – adequate recognition of co-researchers, communities, assistants contributors, facilitators and guides. Compensations should be just.
- Value for life – every component of research must not result in harm, disease, impairment or loss of life.
- Protection of most vulnerable populations – these include children, people with disability, people who are unable to read the language of the research, people with a mental illness, people with adequate income, people from strong spiritual backgrounds, elderly people, people in rural communities, young women and poor people.