SPEaR Good Practice Guidelines 2008: Research and evaluation ethics
Applying the Principle of Competency to research and evaluation ethics
To ensure the ethical competency of their work, officials should:
- Ensure they, and any external researchers contracted in, are technically and ethically competent to carry out the research to the highest standards.
- Ensure the organisation has the appropriate quality assurance and peer review processes in place to support researchers and research participants.
Experienced researchers will be familiar with peer review processes and quality assurance (QA) processes. Peer review procedures should be part of agency processes whether the work is done by contractors or staff. Most agencies will have procedures additional to management review, risk assessment and publication processes.
