Regulating social research: exploring the implications of extending ethical review procedures in social research

Reflecting on my experience of leading several qualitative research projects to investigate ‘sensitive’ topics with potentially ‘vulnerable’ participants, this paper considers the impact and consequences of increased ethical regulation in relation to my own research field and social research more generally. It argues that extending ethical regulation threatens social research in general, and specifically, threatens the study of ‘sensitive’ topics with ‘vulnerable’ populations. The consequences of increased ethical regulation may contradict its intention and place ‘vulnerable’ participants at greater risk than ‘sensitive’ research undertaken with such groups in earlier historical periods. The paper urges social researchers to act collectively, to engage with ethical regulatory regimes in order to challenge the threats they pose to scholarship, and by doing so, defend the value of social research for advancing knowledge so that our scholarship might better serve the populations we study.