Guardians of research integrity
- Wits University
Trust, integrity and respect are non-negotiable in research - Nechama Brodie: Co-Chair of the Non-Medical Research Ethics Committees.
As part of National Science Month, Wits celebrates the people who help ensure that research not only advances knowledge but also upholds the highest ethical standards. In this Q&A with Wits Communications, Nechama Brodie, Co-Chair of the University's Non-Medical Research Ethics Committee, explains why ethics is fundamental to credible science and how the committee safeguards the integrity, trust and accountability that underpin quality research.
What sparked your interest to become the Co-Chair of the Committee?
I was initially encouraged by the then Head of the Wits Centre for Journalism, who thought that it would be a good idea to have someone from a journalism background represented on the Committee. At that time, I admit that my perception of “ethics” was something burdensome, an administrative annoyance that we had to “tolerate” as researchers. But the more meetings I attended, and the more training I completed myself, the more I realised how integral ethics was to developing good quality research projects – and that it was something that should be integrated from the start, not as an afterthought. I was also amazed at the incredible work the committee did. So when they said they needed a new co-chair, I volunteered and spent nearly a year “job shadowing” the other chairs and learning more about what the role would involve.
How many people are part of the Committee and what can you tell us about the contribution of these members?
There are several different Research Ethics Committees at Wits, including medical, non-medical, animal, and biobank research. I work on the non-medical committee. There are currently around 40 members in our committee, including the four chairs and new committee members who are still training, and three incredible ethics officers who provide the most unbelievable administrative support. It sounds like a large group, but as we have to juggle the reviews and meetings with our normal teaching, supervision and research roles (remember all of us are volunteers!), not every member can attend every meeting, so the workload might change month on month.
We meet once a month as a Committee, where we can review up to 60 different applications in a session. If you keep in mind that each application is reviewed by two independent reviewers and one of the Chairs, you can imagine that these are very long meetings! They used to be in person, but now they are online which makes it a little easier to manage. The meetings can easily run to six hours or more. Committee members also need to spend time before each meeting completing their allocated reviews – depending on the number of people able to attend each meeting, each reviewer may need to review as many as nine different applications. We are very grateful to several new committee members who have joined this year, because this really helps to make the workload more manageable.
Outside of the monthly meetings, the committee chairs also work with the National Human Research Ethics Council, which is appointed by the Minister of Health, and with Wits’ Research Office. We also attend meetings with other ethics committee chairs, or with university executives as required, and review applications for ethics waivers (studies categorised as no risk, and where there are no human participants) which don’t need to be heard by the committee. Before each monthly meeting, the chairs also review all of the (non-medical) ethics applications that have been completed by the multiple school-level committees across the university.
Can you tell us about some of the important work of the Committee and why this matters to research?
Research ethics is about trust, integrity and respect, and a deliberate approach that pro-actively minimises unnecessary harm to human and animal participants. A large part of ethics is also about transparency, and informed consent from human participants. These principles and values are essential to the university, but should also be a priority for individual researchers. When we look at not only South African histories, but also in other parts of the Global South, we can see so many examples where humans were treated like “subjects”. Ethics recognises and rejects that model, and seeks to redress the injustices of the past through better practice in the present. While ethics regulations were primarily developed to protect vulnerable populations – which could include children, minorities, or even people who are experiencing trauma – they also explicitly acknowledge that power dynamics and hierarchies can also represent potential types of harm. For example, if a teacher wanted to study their own class, would students who preferred not to participate still be treated fairly? Or, what about if a researcher had received funding from a mining company to investigate mine safety – how could we ensure the research would be objective? Having an accredited system of codes and practices, which apply to every single student, and every single academic at the university, means that we are all held to the same standards and the same levels of accountability. As an added note, for me as a researcher, being able to submit my proposals for ethical review means that I have an extra set of extremely experienced “eyes” looking at my work, in case there is something important that I may have missed.
Is there anything that you would like to add that will assist those conducting research?
Applying for ethics approval can feel very onerous, but if you integrate it into your project plan it should help you think more clearly about your research objectives and ethical practices. I like to think of it like a visa application: once you have received ethics approval, you have a ‘passport’ to really explore your own project, knowing that you are doing so in a credible and principled way.