When is a REC not a REC? When it is a gatekeeper

Abstract

This essay responds to an article, ‘Variation in university research ethics review’, published in this issue. It argues that the authors of that paper do not fully distinguish the usual function of university research ethics committees (RECs) from that of a gatekeeper. The latter term more accurately describes the task they happen to have asked them to fulfil in the course of conducting some empirical research. Whilst they are not alone in making it, the result of this conflation is that the reflections they offer are misguided. In this short comment I briefly discuss the distinction between a REC and a gatekeeper, and indicate how it impacts on the proposals sketched by Vadeboncoeur et al.

Introduction

In ‘Variation in university research ethics review’, Vadeboncoeur, Foster, Townsend and Sheehan offer a number of interesting reflections on their experience of conducting an empirical research project where the proposed ‘subjects’, ‘participants’ or ‘respondents’ were students attending university in England. Having secured ethical approval for the project from a research ethics committee (REC) at their own university, they attempted to access the relevant population(s) of research subjects by contacting RECs at the universities targeted by their proposed research. As is often the case for organizations more generally, universities do not have an obvious or defined ‘point of access’ – or ‘gatekeeper’ – through which researchers can receive institutional (or organizational) permission to conduct the proposed research and make contact with the subjects they needed to do so. Whilst attempting to negotiate access though a REC is not, I think, unusual, it is important to be clear about what is going on when researchers either contact, or are told to contact, such committees in this way. When the proposed research has already been reviewed and approved by a REC, the principle of non-duplication indicates that REC review ought not to be repeated. Thus, whether or not they fully realize this fact, in cases where researchers approach RECs in order to conduct research that already has approval they are asking the REC to do little more than facilitate the conduct of research in the relevant locale (the organization or institution). As such they are asking RECs to act as gatekeepers. The difficulty that then arises is a function of the fact that gatekeepers can, for the most part, act in a manner of their own choosing. Unsurprisingly, institutionalized bodies like RECs tend to respond in accordance with their normal function and, in cases like the one at hand, may proceed to review the proposed research. The problem here is not variation in ethical review; it is the duplication of review and a relatively widespread failure to recognize that RECs are acting as gatekeepers.

Before turning to a direct commentary on the article in question, it is worth making a few points about gatekeepers and their complex role in social scientific research (Crowhurst and kennedy-macfoy, 2013). Whether or not they are formally empowered to do so, gatekeepers are individuals or (small) groups of individuals whose permission, cooperation or, at least, acquiescence is required if researchers are to successfully conduct their research. Were one to adopt such a definition without further reflection one could consider RECs to be a kind of gatekeeper. Given the current context of research ethics governance, if researchers are to conduct research they need the approval of a REC; as such, RECs control whether or not researchers can access the field. As discussed further below it is true that the line between gatekeeping and the proper function of a REC can become blurred. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to identify RECs with gatekeepers as doing so draws the notion of a gatekeeper in too broader terms.

As such a greater level of specification is required. Thus, properly understood, gatekeepers should be understood as controlling access to specific fields, sites and locations – or, simply, mailing lists – that researchers wish to access in order that they might conduct their research. Whilst RECs grant permission for research to take place, they cannot control a researcher’s access to a particular field. As such, RECs should be understood as offering general approval for research proposals. Whilst REC applications may contain detail about the specific sites the researcher proposes to access, REC approval cannot guarantee access. Of course, having approval may assist researchers in their subsequent negotiations with gatekeepers and, having provided detail on the sites to be accessed, researchers may have to return to the REC with an updated proposal if they wish to access different sites. Nevertheless, ethics approval from a REC is nothing more than approval for research to take place in principle. Whether or not it can be conducted in practice is not something for a REC to determine.

As many have suggested, if they are operating correctly, RECs should approve or reject research proposals in a principled, structured, independent and, ideally at least, relatively transparant manner. Furthermore, they should do so whilst focusing on the ethics of the research being proposed (Iphofen, 2009). In contrast, gatekeepers can act for any number of reasons, and they may do so on non-ethical grounds, as a matter of caprice, and in an opaque manner. Of course, gatekeepers need not act in this way, if they so choose, and they can act in a manner similar to a REC. Indeed, they could, if they so chose, imitate RECs in all respects. However, this is a function of the fact that in many cases gatekeepers are able to do as they please. For good or for ill there is often little researchers can do to stop gatekeepers from doing whatever they wish. Nevertheless, even if a gatekeeper were to act as if it were a REC only rarely, and in very particular circumstances, would this obviate the need for review by an univeristy REC. Thus, a particular institution, organization or community, one that falls into the category of ‘highly researched’ say, may elect to subject researchers to a REC-style review as a gatekeeping exercise. However, this would not generally mean that researchers accessing such a field would not need approval from their institution’s REC.

Whilst it is possible for the actions undertaken by a gatekeeper to emulate those of a REC, this does not mean that such gatekeepers are or can act as a REC properly understood. To reiterate, the possibility is a simple reflection of the fact that gatekeepers can often act as they see fit and without the need to justify themselves. Even for a modest proposal, the list of potential gatekeepers can be extensive and the requirements they levee can range from the onerous to the bare minimum of merely needing to be asked. The gatekeeper is a simple, but vital, fact of social scientific research and, depending on the complexity of the field a researcher is attempting to access, there may be any number of gatekeepers or individuals whose permission, cooperation or, at least, acquiescence is required if researchers are to successfully conduct their research. In contrast, the review of a research proposal by an actual REC ought to take place once only. In some cases this principle has been robustly implemented. If a proposal is to be reviewed by an NRES REC, for example, it is exceedingly rare for a university REC to insist on conducting its own ethics review. However, despite the fact that the avoidance of duplication has been a principle of research ethics governance for some time, there are plenty of locations where duplication of review is not unusual. The article at hand, ‘Variation in university research ethics review’, draws on the authors experience of such cases.

Finally, we might consider what may have occurred were further education (FE) students the proposed participants of research conducted Vadeboncoeur and her co-researchers. As FE colleges are not involved in the conduct of research they do not contain RECs and so researchers who wish to conduct research within such institutions cannot approach RECs for permission to carry out their research. Indeed, one could say the same of the University of Law – an institution that falls within the remit of the research project discussed by Vadeboncoeur et al but, one presumes, did not exist until after they commenced this particular project. Given that the researchers secured ethical approval from the REC at their home institution, there would be no ethical failing in conducting such research at an institution that lacked a REC. Of course, researchers may encounter local ethical issues, and gatekeepers, participants or other local actors might raise them. Nevertheless, the fact that such issues may arise does not indicate the need for further or repeated ethical review. Rather, it simply suggests that neither researchers nor RECs can anticipate all ethical issues. Furthermore, in most cases, concerns raised by gatekeepers, participants and other local actors will usually lack formal ethical significance and, regardless, once REC approval is secured all that is required from gatekeepers and participants is permission to conduct the research, which is to say their informed consent. As such, the lack of a local REC within an organization is entirely irrelevant to the issue of accessing research subjects within that organization.

An understandable, but misguided, conflation

As suggested above, Vadeboncoeur et al are not alone in acting as if RECs are appropriate gatekeepers for intra-university research. Certainly, they are not alone in seeking local REC approval for projects like the one they conducted. ¹ There are, I would suggest, a number of reasons for the prevalence of this way of thinking. The first point to note is that, similar to research participants, gatekeepers have a high degree of autonomy when it comes to cooperating with researchers. This means that if a gatekeeper wishes to impose further ethical review upon researchers, there is little that can be done about it. Given the fact that gatekeepers can refuse to grant researchers permission without having to offer any justification, then, rather than raise objections, researchers would be well advised to comply with the requirements. ² Furthermore, given the idea that research should be subject to ethical review is widely accepted, opting for further ethical review is an understandable response from an individual who is (knowingly or unknowingly) acting as a gatekeeper for a researcher who wishes to access university-based populations. It seems that, when conducting intra-university research, those who take RECs to be a first point of contact are either assuming that the correct gatekeeper for university populations is the REC or are acting on the (likely true) assumption that any other institutional gatekeeper would probably require them to obtain approval from the local REC. ³

One additional point is worth making. Whilst I am arguing that the distinction between RECs and gatekeepers should be more fully appreciated, this is not to deny that gatekeepers may have or, whether by themselves or others, be perceived as having, ethical responsibilities of their own. Furthermore, researchers often seek to access fields where they will encounter individuals with professional responsibilities, ethical duties and, in some cases, statutory and legally defined obligations (see Agbebiyi, 2013). The most pertinent of such examples is the responsibility that teachers and educational institutions have with regard to their students. However, that some gatekeepers may be required to attend to ethical matters when considering requests for access from researchers does not mean that gatekeepers are required to think about the ethics of the proposed research in the way that RECs are supposed to do. Whatever they may be, the ethical concerns of gatekeepers should be considered distinct from those considered by RECs.

Part of the purpose of a REC is to approve research proposals and to do so in a manner that is independent of the researcher conducting the research. In so doing they provide both participants and gatekeepers with the assurance that the proposed research meets established disciplinary standards. Insofar as they are understood to be considering the proposed research from an ethical perspective, gatekeepers – and research participants – ought to be seen as considering whether or not the proposed research meets the standards particular to themselves, their specific context or their culture. Even if RECs sometimes evaluate proposals differently, their approval can and should reassure gatekeepers and participants. As such, unless there is a specific reason to think that cultural differences may be a factor in the ethical review of research by RECs, there is no need for gatekeepers to require its duplication and such duplication should be resisted, not least by RECs themselves. As such, when RECs find themselves being asked to act as gatekeepers, they should resist the understandable impulse to review the proposed research as they normally would and, instead, consider the duties of a gatekeeper and whether or not they wish to undertake them. ⁴

An ethical approach to gatekeeping?

Not least by their own actions, Vadeboncoeur et al detail some of the difficulties they encountered as a consequence of the widespread conflation of gatekeeping with ethical review. They have then construed these difficulties as being due to variation in the way different university RECs approach the ethical review of research alone. They have not considered that, first and foremost, these responses result from presenting RECs with an unacknowledged and potentially inappropriate request to act as a gatekeeper. The fact that no one involved – REC or researcher – appears to recognize this request for what it is does not undermine my interpretation. Certianly, the actions of RECs need not reflect the conscious undertakings of its members or its principles of operation. As Hedgecoe (2015) has recently shown, the activities of RECs can reflect tacit concerns for the reputation of the university rather than with the ethics of the proposed research per se.

Whilst the case at hand is somewhat different from that presented by Hedgecoe, the appropriate response bears comparison. Universities have both the freedom and responsibility to manage their reputations and act as gatekeepers. Furthermore, should they wish to do so, they are at liberty to place such responsibilities on RECs. However, if they elect to do so, then these responsibilities should be clearly distinguished from their primary task, the ethical review of research proposals. The reason for this is that, for both scientific and ethical reasons, the review of research proposals ought to be conducted in a manner that is principled, independent and, preferably, transparent manner, one that is structured in such a way as to distinguish between ethics review and broader matters of research governance (Iphofen, 2009). Regardless of whether this ideal is being met in practice (Stark, 2011), it may be that, for this reason alone, it would be wiser not to involve RECs in either reputation management or gatekeeping (Hedgecoe, 2015); not only are such tasks dependent on an assessment of the universities’ broader concerns, but they are also undertakings that need not necessarily be conducted in a principled, independent or transparent manner. Whilst both gatekeepers and an institution’s research governance apparatus may legitimately concern themselves with the management of reputational risk, this should not be the concern of research ethics governance.

In the light of these remarks we might reconsider the way Vadeboncoeur et al propose to solve, resolve or otherwise eliminate the somewhat self-generated, but nevertheless fairly common, problems they encountered when conducting an inter-university research project. The first thing to note is that, insofar as they suggest reforms to the organization of ethical review, their ideas are beside the point. For example, their proposal for multiple research ethics committees (MRECs) – RECs that review research for multiple universities – would not, as they claim, mean that universities ‘could not limit specific research from being conducted’ (Vadeboncoeur et al: 15) once it had been reviewed and approved. To reiterate, the fact of ethical approval would not prevent a university or its representatives from gatekeeping, any more than it would for any other institution. Gatekeepers are unavoidable in practice and, even if universities collectively signed up to the kind of system being suggested, researchers would still have to negotiate access and their entry to the field. Simply through a disinclination to cooperate, individuals who exercise power over particular domains – heads of school, for example – would be able to deny researchers access to research subjects if they wished to do so. Such a global agreement would have to be predicated on the notion that researchers conducting inter-university research would either not need the cooperation of individuals within the targeted university, or that such individuals would, in each and every case, be inclined to offer it – or be compelled to do so by a more powerful institutional actor. Thus the notion that an MREC will solve the kind of problems encounter by the authors in their attempt to conduct intra-university research is unrealistic at best.

Finally, Vadeboncoeur et al’s proposal for ‘Individual RECs with site-specific assessment/gatekeeper’ – one of only three occurrences of the term ‘gatekeeper’ in their article – strikes me as a needleless bureaucratized version of what should already be taking place. Using NRES as a model, Vadeboncoeur et al suggest that the quasi-independent organization of RECs formed to service university and university-based researchers would prevent the duplication of ethical review by RECs at different universities. It would, nevertheless, allow for individuals at specific universities to evaluate research in their role as gatekeepers. However, given that the ESRC’s (2015, p. 22, Section 1.10; 2010, p. 6, point 11; 2006, p. 17, Section 1.15) Framework for Research Ethics (FRE, previously the Research Ethics Framework – REF) recommends that duplication of submission should be avoided, why not simply promote this principle both in general and in the specific case of inter-university research? As previously noted, universities already comply with this suggestion when it comes to research that is subject to review by NRES and, one might add, with regard to various instances of cooperation between researchers at different institutions. Thus, if we were– as researchers, REC members, research governance administrators and university managers – to more fully appreciate the distinction between REC and gatekeeper, then whilst researchers would still have to negotiate access to the relevant populations at different universities (as indeed they must do at their own university) the specific problems raised by Vadeboncoeur et al would not arise, at least not as described and discussed.

Ethics, governance and bureaucracy

As suggested by the title of this article, the proper function of a REC is compromised when it acts as a gatekeeper. The point is not that RECs cannot act as gatekeepers – clearly they can. Rather, it is that gatekeeping lies beyond the scope of the REC and its proper function. Problems arise when they take on the role of a gatekeeper without adequately differentiating it from their normal functioning. The same can be said of those who, through their actions, implicitly ascribe this role to RECs. Thus, in no small part, the difficulties discussed by Vadeboncoeur et al can, I would suggest, be traced to the way in which they conflate the ordinary operation of RECs with the role of gatekeeper. Whilst this conflation is relatively understandable and relatively widespread, it generates a significant level of confusion and, contra the recommendation made by the ESRC’s FRE, seems to have resulted in the duplication of ethical review. Given the assumption that Vadeboncoeur et al are not unaware that it is legitimate to resist such duplication, one wonders why they do not argue for this principle in the context of inter-university research rather than suggest approaches that would, by their own admission, entail a good deal more bureaucracy. In the final analysis this is what is interesting about their article. One might, were one so inclined, think that this is just another example of the kind of expansionist imperialism already associated with the discourse of research ethics (Schrag, 2010). However, and somewhat ironically, to think that this is the beginning, middle and end of what might be said risks presenting an insufficient challenge.

Rather, what might be noted is that, whilst research ethics implies some form of governance (Emmerich, 2013), there are many forms such governance might take. Rather than address the ethical governance of the social sciences on their own terms, Vadeboncoeur et al draw on models that have been developed within the NHS. In so doing, they further replicate the way in which an ethics of research developed within the domain of bioethics, and for the purpose of governing biomedical research, is thought to be appropriate to research more generally. Indeed, they seem to come close to suggesting that there is a ‘burden of proof’ on those who would reject the broader development of the NRES model, that they must demonstrate some relevant difference between the NHS and the university sector. Even if this were the case – a point I would dispute – there is an obvious difference. Universities are comparable but mutually independent institutions and, whilst they sometimes act in a coordinated and collective manner, they do not always do so. This point is borne out by the fact that various university mission groups exist despite the work of Universities UK. ⁵ In contrast, ‘the NHS’ is a singular, albeit highly complex, organization that contains a variety of interrelated institutions, including NRES. Certainly, there are differing professional bodies and organizations to be found within the UK’s healthcare sector. Nevertheless, there is a unity to the NHS that is not found in the higher education sector. Thus, the way the NHS and NRES work may not – and in my view does not - provide an appropriate model for the ethical governance of university researchers. Furthermore, it seems to me that those who would extend this model ought to show that it is a necessary, proportionate and (cost-) effective approach. There are, I think, significant questions to be raised regarding all of these points. Certainly, the need to address the issue of gatekeepers in intra-university research offers nothing like the required justification.