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HOST Policy Research: Statement of Research Ethics

HOST believes that all aspects of the development, design and implementation, analysis, reporting and dissemination of research and evaluation studies need to be carried out within an ethic of respect for persons, knowledge, democratic values and quality. HOST’s ethical guidelines have been developed in particular from research-related guidance from the Government’s Social Research Unit, and the British Educational Research Association. This means that HOST studies for all client organisations respect responsibility to:

• The research profession.
• Research participants.
• The public and contributors to evidence collection and interpretation.
• Client organisations and funding agencies.
• Dissemination and publication.

Research profession

HOST professional and support personnel aim, in all studies and in their execution, to avoid misrepresentation of evidence, data, findings and conclusions. They aim to fully report findings in collaboration with client organisations. Our reporting of procedures, conceptions, results and analyses will be in sufficient detail to allow other researchers and users to understand and interpret these where these are subject to wider dissemination.

Research participants

Participants in HOST studies have the right to be informed about the aims, purpose and likely publication and dissemination of findings. They are entitled to withdraw from participation at any time. Honesty and openness should characterise the relationship between HOST researchers, participants and institutional representatives. In the conduct and reporting of studies, HOST researchers will always be mindful of cultural, religious, gender, or other significant differences among participants or more widely in the research population.

Public

HOST researchers will communicate their findings and the practical significance of the research in clear, straightforward and appropriate language. Participants to HOST studies have the right to remain anonymous unless a clear understanding to the contrary has been reached, or unless participants are made aware that, in certain situations, anonymity cannot be achieved. HOST researchers are responsible for taking appropriate precautions to protect the confidentiality of contributors and security of data. This right will be respected by clients unless alternative arrangements have been agreed that are legitimate to the purposes of the inquiry.

Client organisations and funding agencies

The aims and sponsorship of studies will be made clear in all HOST studies, but clients have the right to have disclaimers included in reports. HOST will support the responsibilities of funding bodies to account for the use of their funds, and also open reporting of progress to advisory bodies which will be appropriately allocated or set up and supported by clients to guide the research. Contracts with clients will, in all cases, be interpreted reasonably and with due regard to process. HOST researchers will remain free to independently interpret findings.

Dissemination and publication

HOST researchers have a duty for timely reporting of findings and the practical significance of results to clients and stakeholders. The right to disseminate, within the terms of any assigned intellectual or other copyright or publication contractual agreements with clients, is entailed by this duty to report. The methodological principle of maximising dissemination of findings and information is an integral part of HOST’s research strategy aimed at testing on a continuous basis the relevance, accuracy and comprehensiveness of findings. Clients have the right to specify dissemination restrictions where this is legitimately required by undertakings.

Managing ethical dimensions of projects

HOST does not have a standing ethical committee. However, ethical practice is built into all quality assurance processes, and both peer-reviewers (eg of research instruments) and in-house referees (ie of reports/outputs) apply HOST’s statement of ethical practice in their review of resources and outputs. Where any conflict of interest, complaint or internal guidance is required on latent or emerging ethical issues for projects, these are the responsibility of the HOST Managing Director. All project and support staff have the responsibility for working within, and reporting any breaches of, ethical practice, to the MD.