Ethical Research Practice
Summaries of Existing Ethical Codes

What follows are short summaries of the key and relevant features of various existing ethical codes for relevant organisations.  Those identified are a selection of ethical codes received as part of a survey of the most relevant organisations which carry out research.  A number of international organisations suggested that they were in the process of formulating codes of ethics for research carried out either in-house or in funded projects.

Research Councils
The Swedish Council for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSFR)[Ethical Principles Governing the Use of Personal Data in Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences
The ethical principles put forward here are designed to provide norms for the conduct of the relationship between researchers and the participants or suppliers of information such as will ensure that the fundamental demand for protection against injury and violation of integrity is met. 

They are provided by way of guidelines for an "advance scrutiny" of research projects, and thus, say the authors, make no claim to being exhaustive.  They are left relatively vague to cover all eventualities.  In effect, they are intended to be signposts rather than detailed prescriptions, and are not intended as substitute for judgement of researchers themselves. 

They are intended to meet the well-known eventuality that conflicts frequently arise between these ethical principles and the demands of scientific method and practical circumstance.   If, say the guidelines, departure is to be made from any ethical principle of research, this must be thoroughly motivated in the application and weighed against the value of the expected increment of knowledge.

The Council has established a Committee for Ethical Questions in Research; consultation with this Committee is recommended in all cases where some doubt exists as to the infringement of a research subject's rights;  in all medical and other physical experimentation and research, scrutiny by the relevant state or regional Ethics Committee is also required.

Personal data is defined as:  "information concerning private and identified, or identifiable, individuals", whether kept with the assistance of automatic data processing or not.

Responsibility for upholding ethical principles is assigned to the individual project supervisor, along with responsibility for ensuring that all personnel are acquainted with those principles.   Principal investigators are held liable for conforming to the Swedish Data Act, and the Statute concerning Public Archives.  Similar requirements exist for the Swedish Secrecy Act and the Official Secrets Act.

Four major areas are isolated:  protection against injury, humiliation, violation of integrity, embarrassment and inconvenience, which lead directly to the eight rules, outlined below:

The Demand for Openness.  All researchers must inform those concerned of his activities and obtain their permission.

The Demand for Self-Determination.  All those participating in an investigation shall themselves have the right to determine whether, for how long, and on what terms they will participate.

The Demand for Confidentiality.  Researchers should observe that the legislation concerning confidentiality, free access and secrecy is difficult to interpret and under revisions.  This demand means that those involved should ensure maximum confidentiality, and that personal data should be stored in such a way that no unauthorised persons have access to them.

The Demand for Autonomy.  This implies that personal data collected for the purposes of research should not be used or loaned out for commercial use or other non-scientific purposes, nor for decisions and measures directly affecting the individual except with explicit consent of all persons involved.

Social Sciences And Humanities Research Council Of Canada (SSHRC):
Integrity in Research and Scholarship

A joint agreement between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council )NSERC) and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council(SSHRC), this is an additional statement supplementing that on Ethical Issues in The Use of Human and Animal Subjects in Research.

Tri-Council Policy Statement:
Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans

"These guidelines are contained in the annexes of all SSHRC applicant guides. The SSHRC requires the researcher to ensure that appropriate steps are taken to protect the human rights and welfare of individuals and groups acting as subjects.  All applicants who intend to carry out research involving human subjects in any discipline must arrange an ethics review, wherever living persons or communities may be affected.  Although the SSHRC does not have "authority to decide when an individual's rights may be superseded by the need for research, but, as a trustee of public funds, (it) has a responsibility to ensure that the activities it supports respect the rights of the public it serves".

A human subject is defined as "any person who is source of raw or unformulated data and how is not acting as, or assisting, the principal investigator".

Ethical Principles

1. Informed Consent Full information on the research must be provided to all subjects, including alternative procedures, their right to withdraw, the degree of confidentiality to be maintained.  A written form of this informed consent must be obtained. 
2. Rights of the Individual  These include the right to full information on nature and purposes of the research and of the risks and benefits, the right to assurance of privacy and confidentiality, and the right of cultural groups to accurate and respectful description, and to discreet use of information on them.
3. Deception   Defined as a situation in which subjects have essential information withheld and/or are intentionally misled about procedures and purposes, this should never be employed if alternatives exist or if harm to subjects is likely, and only after the review committee is satisfied that the scientific advance justifies the deception.
4. Risk and Benefit Risks should also be minimised, both to subjects and to third parties. Where risk is inevitable, extreme caution should be employed and advance testing should be done.
5. Privacy  The right to privacy must be maintained at all times.  Since concepts of privacy vary from culture to culture, the question of privacy should always be looked at from the point of view of those being studied.
6. Confidentiality and Anonymity Confidentiality must be protected at all times and subjects must be informed of all possible breaches in advance.  Responsibility lies with the researcher.

Special Applications of Ethical Principles

Research in the Humanities
Confidentiality and privacy considerations apply equally in the humanities if living persons are likely to be affected by research.  Removal of original manuscripts must be done only after consideration of national rights to those documents. Research on Other Cultures, Countries and Ethnic Groups

A different ethic is required in studying cultures other than one's own.  Care must be taken to communicate in language and terminology the human subjects understand.  If a communication gap exists which makes informed consent impossible, researchers have additional responsibility and restrictions.  The review committee must be assured of safeguards in the chosen methodology.  Local customs and taboos must always be taken into consideration, and given priority. 

Acquisition and Use of Cultural Properties

Local legal and cultural requirements must be observed.

Research on Captive and Dependent Populations

Individuals or groups in a relationship where a power differential could operate to their disadvantage as subjects (e.g. students, minors, prisoners, minority groups, etc.)  must always retain the power of veto.

Research on Children
Parental or guardian informed consent must be obtained.  Children should individually be given the right to refuse or withdraw.

CNRS (France: Ethics Committee)

The CNRS has set up an ethics Committee to “deliberate on the ethical aspects of the practice of scientific research and to make recommendations concerning the application of the rules of ethics and ethical conduct in research…” 

Economic and Social Research Council (UK): Research Ethics and Confidentiality

National Committee for Research ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities (Morway): Guidelines for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences, Lay and the Humanities 2001

A set of recommendations “intended to help researchers and the research community to think about their ethical views and attitudes, become aware of conflicting norms, and become better able to reach well-founded decisions.  The guidelines are accordingly not limited to norms which apply to individual scholars and the heads of research institutions, but also contain norms for other bodies which influence research and its consequences. “  This wide remit distinguishes these extremely thorough guidelines somewhat from other that are more focussed and limited.

National Associations and Organisations

University of Essex (UK): Ethics in Research
Document describing the ethical review procedures of the University Ethics Committee, including application forms and guidelines for ethical evaluation procedures.

Social Research Association (UK): Ethical Guidelines 2002

Declaration of Professional Ethics
The aim of the declaration is "to document shared professional values and experience as a means of providing guidance rather than regulation,...and an affirmation of the membership's concern with these matters and of its resolve to promote the knowledge and interest in professional ethics among statisticians worldwide."  It is intended to assist colleagues throughout the world in the pursuit of their professional goals and responsibilities

As statisticians work in variety of economic, cultural, legal and political settings, each of which influences the emphasis and focus of statistical enquiry, as well as within different branches of various disciplines, each involving its own techniques and procedures and its own ethical approach, therefore different moral precepts guide their work.   

No declaration, it is felt, therefore, could successfully impose a rigid set of rules to which statisticians everywhere should be expected to adhere.  The aim, therefore, is to enable statisticians' individual ethical judgements and decisions to be informed by shared values and experiences, rather than to be imposed by the profession. 

The Declaration documents widely held principles of statistical inquiry, and identifies the factors that obstruct their implementations. It is therefore intended to be informative and descriptive rather than authoritarian and prescriptive. 

The basic principles are presented under a series of major heading.

1.  Obligations to society
Greater access to well-grounded information is beneficial to society; statisticians should consider the likely consequences of collecting and disseminating various types of data and should guard against predictable misinterpretations or misuse. 

a. Widening the Scope of Statistics, through communication of findings for the benefit of the widest possible community.

b. Pursuing Objectivity, through avoidance of engagement or collusion in selecting methods designed to produce misleading results, or in misrepresenting statistical findings by commission or omission.

2. Obligations to funders and employers

a. Clarifying obligations and rules in advance

b. Assessing alternatives impartially to provide funders with impartial assessment of respective merits and demerits of alternatives

c. Not preempting outcomes, by accepting contractual conditions contingent upon particular outcome from proposed statistical inquiry

d. Guarding privileged information about respondents, but not about methods or procedures

3. Obligations to Colleagues

a. Maintaining confidence in statistics without exaggerating accuracy or explanatory power of data

b. Exposing and reviewing methods and findings to allow them to be assessed. 

c. Communicating ethical principles, and alerting potential users of limits of reliability and applicability of data ]

4. Obligations to Subjects

a. Avoiding Undue Intrusion

b. Obtaining Informed Consent, ensuring respondent's entitlement to refuse at any stage aud for whatever reason and to withdraw information just supplied, and avoid deliberate withholding of info likely to affect person's willingness to participate.

c. Modification to informed consent only when necessary, and then other safeguards required. 

d. Respecting rights in observation studies

e. Dealing with proxies

f. Secondary use of data

g. Misleading potential subjects will be censurable if not justified

h. Protecting the Interests of Subjects against potentially harmful effects while trying to minimise disturbance to both subjects and to subjects' relationships with their environment

i. Maintaining confidentiality of records through protection of identities

j. Inhibiting disclosure of identities, through imposition of appropriate measures to prevent publication or released in form which discloses identity

UK Government Statistical Service: 
Official Statistical Code of Practice
This is the code of practice used by the UK Government statistical service for all official statistics.  It sets out  the shared good practices built up by statisticians from a wide range of government offices. Many of the principles and practices contained within the code are also relevant to others producing statistics. The code is “designed to maintain high standards and to promote public confidence in all official statistics and analyses”.

The code sets out twelve key principles for producers of official statistics. These are then applied to the main activities involved in producing statistics, from planning through to dissemination, to produce some 50 standards to guide personal behaviour.

The key principles are the following:

• integrity in all operations, honest and objective behaviour
• relevance of statistical activities to national needs
• wide consultation within and outside government
• avoidance of undue load on survey respondents
• respect for privacy of all information
• provision of accessible statistics complemented by interpretation and advice
• open statistical processes
• effective communication with all involved
• high service and quality standards
• improved professional competence
• cost-effective methods
• Ethical principles are highlighted in the following areas of activity:

a. planning - collect only such information as is necessary, effective and efficient, established through consultation and employ appropriate methods, with adherence to international standards and programmes where possible and encouraging consistency and comparability between datasets and overtime

b. collection

• obtain informed consent, whether investigation is voluntary or statutory, use unbiased questionnaires and provide clear guidance
• draw truly representative samples, and reduce non-response
• provide feedback to respondents
• reduce burden on respondents
• maintain data quality

c. processing:

• maintain accuracy through validation checks, avoid potential biases
• employ relevant technologies
• rapid processing and dissemination

d. analysis and interpretation;

• impartial and objective and relevant interpretations, validated results

f. dissemination:

• early and simultaneous release for all users, in forms convenient to users
• guidance and interpretation to help users understand and use statistics (including information on accuracy and full disclosure of methods)
• detailed, unaggregated release where possible, with full documentation and contact
• numbers for further information
• full information services, including provision of information for international organisations.

g. professional and managerial competence;

• upgraded professional knowledge and skill, awareness of new developments
• education of the user community and external independent reviews of activities

The Government Statistical Service Code of Practice on the Handling of Data Obtained from Statistical Inquiries (CMND. 9270, 1984, reissued 1991)    

Basic principles:
Informed consent includes respondent awareness of nature of statistical inquiries

(voluntary vs compulsory)

Confidentiality is safeguarded at all times throughout the process.  If data are transferred, safeguards must be applied by the originating department and the recipient, and the recipient must sign undertakings concerning these safeguards and accepting limitations on use and further transfer

Identifiable information must only be used for statistical purposes or transferred is required by law or if written informed consent received beforehand "All reasonable care" must be taken that identifiable information is not released unless the respondent has given consent. Identifiable information may be preserved in an archive if confidentiality conditions can be metA statistical unit is not considered identifiable if the identification requires an unreasonable amount of time, cost or effort.

National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER):
Code of Practice and Ethical Principles

A Code of Practice
The NFER is a leading independent educational research organisation for England and Wales.  Adherence to its ethical principles is required of all its researchers.

Basic Principles:
Before engaging in research in schools, all researchers will negotiate access for research purposes with local authorities, schools and other organisations in the education and training services, providing full information on the research purposes, methods, schedules, feed-back and dissemination.

All data collection procedures will be designed to avoid undue burden on any one institution or individual, all activities will be above board and in written, taped or filmed form.  All notes will be restricted to staff.  Tests will be designed as reliable and valid. 

It is one of the central principles of social-science research that (unless otherwise negotiated) researchers should preserve the confidentiality and anonymity of their data sources. In adherence to this, particular conditions are set:

• no raw research data released to third parties unless anonymised or agreed with respondents
• adequate security procedures imposed, and with limited access
• reports on research reported only in unidentifiable form, unless agreed beforehand
• data protection legislation will be upheld
• research collaborators will be required to abide by provisions of code

British Sociological Association (BSA):
Statement of Ethical Practice

This code is based heavily on that for the American Sociological Association. Research styles are diverse and changing, and the settings varied; researchers therefore inevitably face ethical, sometimes legal, dilemmas from competing obligations and conflicts of interest. The Statement aims to alert members to issues that raise ethical concerns and to indicate potential problems and conflicts of interest that might arise.  It is not intended to be  exhaustive, but rather a set of obligations to which members should normally adhere as principles. Deviations from these ethical practices should result from deliberation not ignorance. Their holding force rests on active discussion, reflection, and continued use by researchers.

Basic Principles:

Professional integrity

Members should:

• strive to maintain integrity of discipline, freedom to research and study, and to publish and disseminate results
• safeguard proper interests of those involved in or affected by their work
• report findings accurately and truthfully
• recognise the boundaries of their professional competence
• undertake only worthwhile research using appropriate methods
• make only justifiable claims, and not report on inadequate or
• tendentious evidence

Relations with and responsibilities towards research participants

Members should:

• never override the rights of others
• carry out only studies which is necessary for the furtherance of knowledge
• take responsibility for uses of their research

in relationships with research participants:

• researcher must ensure that physical, social and psychological well-being of participants is not adversely affected, particularly in situations characterised by disparities of power and status.
• research should be based on freely given informed consent, involving full communication of information to respondents about research purposes, financing, methodology and research team.  The right to refuse or withdraw must be explained, as well as procedures for protection of confidentiality and anonymity.  Uses of data must be discussed, as well as potential audiences.  Particularly in field research conditions, informed consent must be renegotiated over time.  In cases where a "gatekeeper" is employed, consent should also be obtained directly from the individual respondents. 
• consequences of research work should be borne in mind by researchers. This responsibility remains even in cases of informed consent.
• researchers should avoid undue intrusion in respondents' lives, and bear this possibility in mind at all times.
• special care should be taken when disparities of power or status are involved.
• Care should be taken when using proxy data.

in cases of covert research:

• covert methods are ethically dangerous, but are often deemed necessary. Such methods should only be resorted to if it is impossible to use other methods to gain essential data.  Informed consent should, if possible, be obtained post hoc.

anonymity and privacy should be respected at all times. 

• threats should be should be anticipated. Appropriate security measures should be put in place, and provisions of the Data Protection Act observed.  All methods of preserving anonymity should be investigated and the most appropriate chosen.  No personal data should be published; where disclosure is probable, potential respondents should be warned in advance.
• guarantees to prevent disclosure must also be obtained by others who will use the data. 

researchers should avoid undermining the reputation  of sociology as a discipline.

Relations with and responsibilities towards sponsors and/or funders

• clarification of obligations, roles and rights in advance
• contracts which are contingent on particular outcomes or sets of findings should be refused. Clarification should be sought in advance.
• methods and procedures should be made public, but confidential information protected. Maximum openness should be maintained.
• researchers should carry out contractual obligations fairly, disseminate their research findings and resist all restrictions on their right to do so.

Guidelines for Good Professional Conduct

These guidelines covering relations with students, professional teaching colleagues, and their employing institutions are appended to the above Code of Practice.

National Bureau of Economic Research (US):  Statement of Policies and Procedures Governing the Use of Human Subjects in Research Conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research

The NBER has stated that it has referred, in a disciplinary hearing, only once to this code of ethical procedures. The procedures differ somewhat from those described above in that they have established a formal Human Subjects Committee.

Eight separate policies have been articulated.  These cover:

• If research exposes human subjects to "risk of unreasonable harm", it shall not be carried out.
• The principal investigator bears primary responsibility for assessing potential harm to participants and must consult the Human Subjects Committee in such cases.  Responsibility for protection of participants is shared by primary investigator and all other study members.
• Human Subjects Committee has authority to review, approve and disapprove, or state conditions for, conduct of research involving human subjects.
• Principal investigator must inform subjects prior to participation of relevant factors relating to research.  Informed consent must be obtained.
• Privacy of subjects must be respected.
• No coercion must take place.
• Freedom to withdraw must be made clear and honoured.
• Source of support for research must be communicated, on demand, to subjects.

Procedures involve a signed statement from the principal investigator that the principles are met within the proposed research, submission of all research proposals involving human subjects to Human Subjects Committee, and all research proposals involving human subjects must be approved by the Committee before fieldwork begins and must not then be altered from the originally submitted application.

A further document, Procedures for Dealing with Possible Misconduct in Science, covers procedures to be followed in cases of breach of the principles outlined above.

National Opinion Research Centre (NORC) US: Statement of Professional Ethics

This code contains a minimum of actual undertakings.  They are presented in general prose form, with each researcher signing a personal undertaking to abide by the ethical and professional standards of the Centre.  A shortened form is signed by all visitors.

Basic ethical principles involve:

• integrity, professional standards, job satisfaction, and safety for interviewers and staff
• respondents' right to privacy, to decide voluntarily whether to participate and to be informed about purposes, scope, and importance of that involvement
• researchers' right to gather a complete and accurate picture of social realities through data collection
• the public's confidence in the Centre's management of human and financial resources 

Intent and policy is to protect the rights privacy and confidence of respondents, to maintain the confidentiality of its documents, and to safeguard all internal methods, processes and procedures not generally known in the field of data collection and analysis.  The common procedures for reaching these aims are similar to those already seen in other ethical statements.

Society for Research in Child Development:
Ethical Standards for Research with Children

The Society states that "children as research subjects present ethical problems for the investigator different from those presented by adult subjects .. children are often viewed as more vulnerable to stress ...(and) having less knowledge and experience, are less able to evaluate what their participation in research might mean.  As a result, some special conditions are outlined below, although the basic principles remain the same as those above.

• Parental or other in loco parentis permission must be obtained, as well as that of the child.
• Children retain the same rights as do adults; investigator must be particularly careful to protect them on behalf of the child.
• Particular attention should be paid to the unintended weight which the adult investigator's  reports and comments might have, and care taken to avoid psychological harm to the child. 
• The investigator should be especially mindful of the social, political and human implications of his research.
• If, in the course of the research, the investigator becomes aware of information which could seriously affect the child's well-being, expert advice must be sought.

In most other aspects, the ethical codes follows other codes described above.

Deutsche Gesellschaft fuer Online Forschung e.V:
Standards for Quality Assurance for Online Surveys

Guidelines to ensure that all online surveys reach the highest possible ethical and professional standards, endorsed by

ADM Arbeitskreis Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforschungsinstitute e.V.
ASI Arbeitsgemeinschaft Sozialwissenschaftlicher Institute e.V.
BVM Berufsverband Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforscher e.V.
D.G.O.F. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Online-Forschung e.V

Society for Applied Anthropology:
Professional and Ethical Responsibilities

The above code, published in the American Anthropologist, is intended as a guide to professional behaviour for member and fellows of the Society.  It contains a number of general points.  The most relevant for our purposes are described below.

Relevant principles:

• disclosure of research goals, methods and sponsorship to people studied.
• participation shall be voluntary and informed
• confidentiality must be maintained
• likely limits of confidentiality and possible risks must be disclosed to participants
• respect must be paid to dignity, integrity and worth of nations studied
• responsibility to colleagues to maintain standards
• publication of results required

Other principles relate to other employment-related aspects of ethical behaviour.

American Political Science Association:
A Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science:  Regulations Concerning Research on Human Subjects

The Guide covers all aspects of professional behaviour for academic political scientists. Only  the section on human subjects is relevant to our investigation.

American Association for Public Opinion Research:
Best Practices for Survey and Public Opinion Research and Code of Processional Ethics and Practices

These guidelines cover all aspects of the survey process from conceptualisation, organisation, sampling, questionnaire design, data collection, data processing and analysis.  They are supplemented by the Code of Processional Ethics and Practices which concerns the maintenance of “high standards of scientific competence and integrity in conducting, analysing and reporting …work, in … relations with survey respondents, with ... clients, with those who eventually use the research for decision-making purposes, and with the general public”.

American Statistical Association:
Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice

The ASA Committee on Professional Ethics adopted these guidelines in 1989, which are intended to encourage consideration of ethical issues and promote high ethical standards among membership of the Association. They follow the general principles established in the International Statistical Institute Guidelines and are intended as educational rather than regulatory.  There are therefore no specific rules or regulations.  

The principles underlying these guidelines are the traditional ethical norms of seeking truth and avoiding error, but more specifically for statisticians, there are concerns for the privacy of collected data, the open and complete description of statistical procedures, and the use and communication of the statistical method. 

Specific obligations are to:

• maintain of integrity in professional work
• avoid undue intrusion or burden, maintain confidentiality
• remain viable and open to external assessment in all activities
• clarify and adhere to agreed statistical procedures in all dealings with clients and employers.

American Psychological Association:
Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct

The "Ethical Code" has several sections:

• Introduction, discussing the intent, organisation, procedural considerations and scope of application
• Preamble and General Principles, outlining aspirational goals
• Ethical Rules, setting forth enforcable rules for conduct.

Only those aspects particularly relevant to the research covered by the draft code are included here.

General Principles

• Competence
• Integrity
• Professional and Scientific Responsibility
• Respect for People's Rights and Dignity
• Concern for Other's Welfare
• Social Responsibility

Ethical Standards include:

• General standards, such as boundaries of competence, maintaining expertise, basis for scientific and professional judgments, avoiding harm, avoidance of exploitative relationships, documentation of professional and scientific work and so on.  These relate to general aspects of social and professional behaviour.
• Standards for evaluation, assessment and intervention
• Standards for advertising and other public statements
• Standards concerning therapy sessions
• Standards concerning privacy and confidentiality, detailing regulations concerning
• the communication to informants of the limits of confidentiality, the minimising of intrusions to privacy, the maintenance and security of records, limitations on disclosure, the need for frequent and in-depth consultations, the management and handling of confidential information on databases, the use of confidential information in teaching, and the ownership of records and data.
• Standards concerning teaching, training supervision, research and publishing, including
• planning of ethical and sound scientific research, responsibility for the welfare of informants, the necessity of obtaining written informed consent, conditions under which the dispensing with informed consent is possible, the use of deception in psychological research, sharing and utilising data, the reporting of research results (to informants and to the wider public), and so on.
• Standards relating to forensic research
• Standards concerning the resolution of ethical issues, including confronting ethical
• issues and consultation with relevant bodies, conflicts between ethical standards and organisational demands, the informal resolution and reporting of ethical violations, and so on.

British Educational Research Association:
Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research

These guidelines represent an adaptation of those formulated by the American Educational Research Association for its own members.  The impetus for their adoption by the BERA was " a concern amongst the educational research community about increasing restrictions being imposed ny government agencies on the conduct and dissemination of the educational research and evaluation which they sponsor. This concern is reflected throughout the Guidelines.

Basic Principles:

All educational research should be conducted within an ethic of respect for persons, respect for knowledge, respect for democratic values, and respect for the quality of educational research.

Educational researchers have responsibility to:

• the research profession (avoid misrepresentation of data, report their findings widely and completely, provide background procedural documentation, decline to review competing or conflicting research, and behave in a professional manner)
• the participants (inform and obtain informed consent, take special care in dealing with children, have honest and open relationships with participants, maintain right of participants to withdraw, be mindful of cultural, religious, gender, and other significant differences in research population)
• the public (communicate findings in clear, straightforward manner, maintain confidentiality of all information, explain limits of confidentiality)
• Relationships with funding agencies are also included: (ownership of data and results rests with researcher unless alternative contractual arrangements are made, researchers should remain free to interpret and publish their findings without censorship or approval from organisations or individuals). Rights to publish can only be limited by general legislation (e.g. libel, race relations).  Researchers should retain the right to disassociate themselves from misleading or inaccurate reports of the research; permission to publish should never be denied. 

Further regulations concern intellectual ownership and relationships to host institutions

Scottish Council for Research in Education:
Code of Practice for Funded Educational Research in Scotland

The code was formulated in its present form in 1990.  The need for such a code arose both from the changing conditions under which research contracts were being awarded and also because of the visible contemporary concerns about education is quality.  The code is therefore aimed at both preservation of "academic freedom" and at improvement in the standards of research. It is intended as a framework to guide research practice. 

Basic Coverage:

• Rights and obligations of those involved:
• funders: selection process, evaluation process, right of ownership and the dissemination process
• host institution:
• researchers (with a special section on Contract Researchers - this is probabl
• a specific concern of British researchers)
• the researched: avoiding undue intrusion, seeking permission and informed consent, protecting anonymity
• In addition to sections on the tendering process, contract management and advisory committees, the guidelines specifically address issues of confidentiality, dissemination of research findings and access to information.

American Sociological Association:
Code of Ethics

The Code is intended to provide feasible requirements for ethical behaviour, and is meant to sensitise all sociologists to the ethical issues that may arise in their work.  It therefore falls within the educational, rather than the regulatory, type of code.

Topics Addressed:

• The Practice of Sociology
• Objectivity and Integrity
• Disclosure and Respect for the Rights of Research Populations
• Publications and Review Process
• Teaching and Supervision
• Ethical Obligations of Employers, Employees and Sponsors
• Policies and Procedures

Procedures include the setting up of a Committee on Professional Ethics. which acts as an advisory and regulatory body, promoting ethical behaviour but also mediating in cases where unethical behaviour is cited.  Its most extreme power is the recommendation of membership termination to the Council of the Association. 

International Organisations

European Science Foundation:
Good Scientific Pratice in Research and Scholarship

Council of Europe:
Recommendations on the Protection of Personal Data Collected and Processed for Statistical Purposes

These recommendations were produced by a special Working Party of the Council of Europe.  They cover all aspects of statistical activity and were prepared in the light of a pre-existing Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data  (Strasbourg 1981).  They attempt to strike a balance between the need for research and statistics, and the necessary protection of the individual especially when automatic data processing is involved. They relate particularly to automatic collection and processing of personal data for statistical purposes, as well as data collected manually. 

Personal data is defined as "information relating to an identified or identifiable individual (the data subject)", unless the identification entails unreasonable delay and manpower.  Sensitive data is defined as "personal data which require appropriate safeguards such as data relating racial origin, political opinions, religious or other beliefs, as well as data concerning criminal conventions, health or sexual life."

Basic areas covered are:

• Respect for privacy
• Conditions for lawful processing for statistical purposes
• Informing the data subjects
• Consent - free and informed. 
• Rights of access
• Primary collection of data for statistical purposes
• Processing of data for statistical purposes
• Conservation and destruction of data
• Publication
• Security of personal data
• Communication of personal data for statistical purposes
• Deontology Codes

International Marketing Association:
Ethical Standards

International Sociological Association:
Code of Ethics

All ISA members are committed to adhere to the principles of this Code.  They are intended to be supplemented by the individual sociologist’s own personal values, culture and experience.