Towards a culture of care for ethical review: connections and frictions in institutional and individual practices of social research ethics

As researchers, institution-wide regulatory and organisational cultures guide our work. Over the past two decades, University Research Ethics Committees have been formally established across social science disciplines. However, the functioning of these committees has not been without critique. It is often argued that established ethical procedures informed by the medical sciences do not fit well with the more iterative epistemologies and unpredictable practices of doing social fieldwork. In this paper, I contribute to these discussions by considering what a further framework, a ‘culture of care’, might offer to university research ethics. A culture of care has evolved in contexts like the National Health Service (NHS) and animal research, and makes central claims around support, openness, collaboration and relationships. Bringing this to research ethics, I explore experiences of care through moments of friction in doing fieldwork with people living with Motor Neurone Disease. Identifying gaps between the institutional, personal and relational, I tentatively suggest some key features that a culture of care for research ethics might seek to develop. These discussions are also timely. Wider conversations emerging around reimagining research cultures in higher education provide an opportune moment to consider what a reimagined research ethics might look like and offer too.