Social Research Methods and Research Practices > Social Research Methods
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Worthiness is a necessary precursor to empathy, which is vital for the type of collaborative and participatory co-production research we sought to pursue in the ‘Reimagining Futures’ project. The work of organizing research projects to create conditions for more than the mere inclusion of multiple voices in the research can be seemingly inherent in research pursued with (rather than on or about, for example) communities, organizations, young people, or some combination thereabouts.
Artificial intelligence (AI) has enabled new innovations, as well as having applications in many traditional products, such as cars and aircraft, which are already subject to regulation designed to protect the public from harm and ensure fairness in economic competition. In general, the approach to the regulation of AI-enabled products to ensure public safety should be informed by an assessment of the aspects of risk that the addition of AI may introduce, including those aspects of risk that it may increase or reduce. Additional requirements for AI regulations add further layers of complexity to innovation by industry. This chapter will address questions such as how the incorporation of AI into these products will affect the relevant regulatory approaches. If a risk falls within the bounds of an existing regulatory regime, moreover, the policy discussion should start by considering whether the existing regulations already adequately address the risk, or whether they need to be adapted to the addition of AI. Where regulatory responses to the addition of AI threaten to increase the cost of compliance, or slow the development or adoption of beneficial innovations, policymakers should consider how those responses could be adjusted to lower the barriers to innovation without adversely impacting safety or market fairness. In April 2021, the European Commission introduced a proposal for legislation to govern the use of AI, acting on its aim to draw up rules for the technology sector over the next five years and on its legacy as the world’s leading regulator of digital privacy. At the heart of the issue is the will to balance the need for rules with the desire to boost innovation, allowing the old continent to assert its digital sovereignty. At the same time, with Brexit the UK is now in a more autonomous position and looking at diverging from the European Union (EU) on this issue as with many other regulatory frameworks (despite the current legislation having been inspired by the UK in the past). On where the needle should be, opinions are divided – and the publication of the Commission’s draft proposal will not be the end of the discussion. But how will such rules fit in with broader plans to build European tech platforms that will compete globally with other regions? How will new requirements on algorithmic transparency come across to the general public? And what kind of implementation effort will this require from start-ups, mid-size companies and big tech?
Between them, accelerating climate crises and the COVID-19 pandemic have created the perfect storm for political (and societal) insecurity. Even as nations try to address the implosion of work and the collapse of conventional economics, the prospect of food security looms in the background. For some, it is the ideal opportunity to resell the illusion that genetically modified (GM) foods and crops are the answer. Just as technology giants have prospered during the current crisis (while conventional traders have crashed), agrichemical giants see this as an opportunity to expand corporate control of the food chain. Bigger questions about food security, ecological well-being, health implications and the ethical underpinnings of food technology research all risk being marginalised. The imperatives of the immediate (and the corporate) will seek to override longer-term questions of both food security and democracy. This chapter revisits the arguments surrounding the original rejection of GM foods/crops, the ways in which science (and research) were captured and compromised by narrow corporate interests, and the updated context in which the debate is likely to re-emerge (particularly through the framework of future UK trade deals). The chapter sets today’s key food issues in a wider context; one that incorporates ecological aspects of soil fertility, more sustainable approaches to food distribution and waste, and the ethical issues surrounding research and risk. All are then set alongside questions about more traditional (collective) rights to save seeds and holistic approaches to long-term food security.
Racism is alive and well in many countries around the world in 2020 [the time of this writing]. Ethnic and racial discrimination and inequality seem to be endemic in our society, manifest in the revival of protests internationally supporting Black Lives Matter. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted inequality with many countries exhibiting a disproportionate number of cases in Black and minority ethnic communities as compared to White communities. In the 1970s and 1980s multicultural and anti-racist initiatives in the form of laws and guidelines were put in place to counter racism and education. By now racism should have been a thing of the past –+ but it is not. Where did we go wrong and what can be done differently now to eliminate racism? This chapter presents a case study that will focus on education, re-examining 20th-century initiatives and drawing from them the lessons that can be learned for educational settings today. It will address the role of the concept of White privilege in systemic racism and seek to draw up guidelines for eliminating racism in schools and other public services. The examples in this chapter are drawn from the US and UK. It provides one example of a case where evidence of a problem existed, and where various initiatives and strategies were adopted to address the problem. Some policies were effective, and others were not. This case study points to the importance of ensuring that all the available evidence on a topic, especially one as complicated as racism and education, is taken into account, and that approaches are evaluated as they are implemented to provide further evidence to guide policy revisions and changes.
What happens to a programme of specific and targeted health promotion interventions when a pandemic such as COVID-19 occurs? Does health promotion activity become deprioritised in public health terms even though it might help to mitigate some of the worst effects of the threatening viral attack to certain sectors of the population? In terms of public policy, does ‘everything else’ stop when there’s a pandemic? Surely the crisis is worsened when attention is diverted from potentially serious additional consequences such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as people suffering from chronic diseases are often at greater risk during the pandemic? This chapter draws on the experiences of the impact of pandemic on an EU-funded five-year implementation science SPICES (Scaling-up Packages of Interventions for Cardiovascular disease prevention in selected sites in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa) project. Implementing and delivering CVD health promotion activity across a diverse range of health systems and infrastructure in low-, middle- and high-income settings has been complex. One of our main objectives was to identify and compare the contextual factors across study sites that influence the scale-up of a comprehensive CVD prevention intervention. The unexpected impact of COVID-19 across the implementation sites has meant that our activity has been fundamentally altered. We present reflections from the different project sites (Belgium, France, UK, South Africa and Uganda) on how they have dealt with and coped with the impact of the pandemic on their work and what ethical issues this has raised for our health promotion research.
How do policymakers sort through the myriads of research studies, reports and evidence briefs to focus only on well-conducted and ethically gathered evidence? When politicians claim that they have been ‘following the science’ and their decisions have been ‘guided by the science’ or are ‘evidence-based’ or ‘evidence-informed’, how can they demonstrate this? These questions become even more complex when answers are sought at an international level and draw on several disciplines and a range of evidence sources. At the very least, it should mean that they are not drawing on dubious sources, such as briefings from ideologically biased think tanks, groups funded by undeclared vested interests, individuals who are overly passionate for their own isolated views, or positions based primarily on conspiracy theories. The chapters in this collection seek to encourage policymakers and their advisors to ask certain types of questions as they form policy about an issue: What exactly is the scientific evidence on the issue? Where did that evidence come from? Who is providing the evidence and what are their credentials and potential biases? Is the evidence reliable and can it be ‘trusted’? The chapters further aim to point policymakers and their advisors to resources that will help answer these questions.
Disasters, humanitarian emergencies and pandemics are characterised by crisis conditions that require urgent attention. This chapter explores how ethical evidence from research should be used to inform policy during a pandemic. Often scientific evidence is lacking in many areas, leading to uncertainty about how to respond and generate policies. The COVID-19 pandemic is used here to highlight ethical challenges for researchers and policymakers in crisis situations. The novelty of the virus created an urgent need for research. On top of the technical challenges of conducting research during a pandemic, ethical challenges arose regarding the balance between methodological rigour and public health urgency. Should less rigorous research be conducted to produce some evidence sooner? Once results become available, should they go through the normal, lengthy review process, or be made available more quickly? This urgency led to the public availability of preprint versions of manuscripts before they were given rigorous peer-review. Policymakers, practioners, media and the public were faced with decisions over whether to use those manuscripts or wait for the revised published versions. With the many publications available on COVID-19, users of research results have an ethical responsibility to evaluate, or critically appraise, all reported findings.
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This important book offers practical advice for using evidence and research in policymaking. The book has two aims. Firstly, it builds a case for ethics and global values in research and knowledge exchange, and secondly, it examines specific policy areas and how evidence can guide practice.
The book covers important policy areas including the GM debate, the environment, Black Lives Matter and COVID-19. Each chapter assesses the ethical challenges, the status of evidence in explaining or describing the issue and possible solutions to the problem. The book will enable policymakers and their advisors to seek evidence for their decisions from research that has been conducted ethically and with integrity.
How do policymakers sort through the myriads of research studies, reports and evidence briefs to focus only on well-conducted and ethically gathered evidence? When politicians claim that they have been ‘following the science’ and their decisions have been ‘guided by the science’ or are ‘evidence-based’ or ‘evidence-informed’, how can they demonstrate this? These questions become even more complex when answers are sought at an international level and draw on several disciplines and a range of evidence sources. At the very least, it should mean that they are not drawing on dubious sources, such as briefings from ideologically biased think tanks, groups funded by undeclared vested interests, individuals who are overly passionate for their own isolated views, or positions based primarily on conspiracy theories. The chapters in this collection seek to encourage policymakers and their advisors to ask certain types of questions as they form policy about an issue: What exactly is the scientific evidence on the issue? Where did that evidence come from? Who is providing the evidence and what are their credentials and potential biases? Is the evidence reliable and can it be ‘trusted’? The chapters further aim to point policymakers and their advisors to resources that will help answer these questions.
Within the academic sector, ethical conduct of research is usually accorded high importance, especially when this research has direct public policy relevance. It is generally recognised that such research needs to be in line with ethical principles, and individual researchers, academic institutions and the large institutional (public sector) funders all recognise their importance. While the implementation of these principles can sometimes be challenging, the need for them is not in question, and there are frameworks, mechanisms and institutions to underpin this commitment. In contrast, non-academic research, analysis and policy advice, such as in the activities of think tanks and non-academic research institutes, take place in a very different environment. While many of the individuals and institutions active in this sector are equally committed to ethical principles, it can be difficult to monitor and enforce the adherence to these principles, given the nature of activities and the persistent presence of ‘bad actors’ hiding behind the claim of being a think tank. When attempting to set out (and see implemented) ethical guidelines for research in the non-medical field, in particular in the context of evidence provided for policymaking, the role of the non-academic sector is crucial. While difficult to define and delineate, this particular subset of the research field (non-academic focused on policy) is probably larger and more impactful than that part of the research field that would typically be covered by such an ethical framework (that one finds in academic policy-focused research). This chapter sets out why the ethical conduct of think tanks matters, the challenges arising from the nature of the non-academic research marketplace, and suggests some potential solutions to encourage sign-up and adherence to ethical principles by think tanks.
