Abstract
Research ethics has stepped onto the world stage. From mostly just being a technical discipline focused on preventing the exploitation of research participants, it has emerged as a major agent for international justice. And the group of people who have been pivotal in bringing about this change are one of the most researched populations on the planet: the San Community in South Africa. Holding valuable traditional knowledge and possessing a genome that is linked to early humankind, the San have been inundated with researcher requests and visits. For decades, they suffered research intrusions with no or little benefit to themselves (Schroeder et al., 2019: 73–88). Then they started to fight back.
In 2017, the San became the first indigenous community in Africa to issue their own code for research ethics (Callaway, 2017). Unlike standard ethics codes, the San Code of Research Ethics is not a vision of excellence for researchers. Instead, it is a defense mechanism, a request for fairness, respect, care and honesty from researchers. As prominent San Leader, Reverend Mario Mahongo, remarked: “I don’t want researchers to see us as museums who cannot speak for themselves and who don’t expect something in return; as humans we need support” (Chennells and Schroeder, 2019a: 3). When communities secure rights for themselves and set their own boundaries for researchers, this represents a step change from conventional reliance upon the goodwill of the researchers to conduct their research ethically. But the story did not stop there.
The San applied the core values of their research ethics code to co-negotiate the biggest benefit-sharing agreement the world has ever seen. Signed in 2019, the San and other traditional knowledge holders will henceforth receive a share of the Rooibos industry’s profits to compensate them for their historic contribution to the industry (Chennells and Schroeder et al., 2019b). On the one hand, this is far away from research and research ethics. This is about environmental sustainability as ruled by the 1992 UN Convention on Biodiversity. On the other hand, this negotiation was undertaken by a community who had developed an effective mechanism for defending their rights when dealing with external parties in an effort to achieve equitable partnerships. Hence, the San Code of Research Ethics and, by implication, the advancement of research ethics, contributed to the launch of a small South African community onto the world stage. As a Nature editor remarked in November 2019, there are lessons to be learned from South Africa, in particular that, “indigenous communities must be . . . treated as equals in research.” The editor continued:
The ethics code and the rooibos agreement are small steps towards a bigger demand: that indigenous people, especially those whose ancestors lost lives, land and livelihoods during more than a century of exploitation, are treated fairly and as equals. (Nature, 2019)
We argue that other vulnerable populations must also be treated as equals in research. As two new editors (Dr. Kate Chatfield as co-editor and Prof. Doris Schroeder as associate editor) join Research Ethics, they, together with Prof. Sarah Edwards, wish to broaden the remit of the journal in two ways:
First, and this has already begun, the newer field of research integrity will be duly represented in this journal as a key component of Research Governance (see Figure 1), which incorporates both ethics and integrity. All areas need to be dealt with effectively for research to be conducted ethically.
Research governance, integrity, and ethics.
Second, we welcome success stories, like the San story, where advances in research ethics have contributed to broader efforts in achieving local, national, or international justice.
We hope you will contribute excellent papers for these new endeavors and look forward to a fruitful collaboration.