The Responsible Conduct of Bioethics Research

Abstract

The responsible conduct of research in the biomedical and behavioral sciences has received significant attention since the late 1980s. However, very little has been written about the responsible conduct of bioethics research. Bioethics is an interdisciplinary field and brings together divergent ethical standards and practices which may be the source of tension or conflict. This article argues that bioethicists should reflect more on ethical issues in the responsible conduct of bioethics research through examination of authorship practices and peer review. I also outline three possible approaches to promote research integrity in bioethics.

Keywords:

• bioethics
• interdisciplinary research
• multi-authored manuscripts
• peer review
• research integrity
• responsible conduct of research

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am extremely appreciative to Dr. David B. Resnik for several interesting discussions on this topic and for critical feedback of an earlier version of the manuscript. An earlier version of this article was first written while the author was a Guest Researcher at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, NIH. I would also like to thank Timothy Caulfield and Drs. Bryn Williams-Jones and Gillian Crozier for their most helpful comments on later drafts of the manuscript. I am grateful for the thoughtful feedback from the peer reviewers of this manuscript. I would also like to acknowledge Nina Hawkins and Khorshed Patel for administrative support. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the positions of Health Canada or the Government of Canada.

Notes

1. The discussion presented here is restricted to the peer review of research grants and manuscripts, and a detailed consideration of other types of peer reviews undertaken in academic settings is not considered.