Research ethics

Research ethics is one of the oldest and most discussed areas of modern medical ethics but as three papers in this issue illustrate it is still possible to advance the field.

Davies and co-authors describe a European workshop on research ethics held in Warsaw in April 2008 (page 382). Although all European Union and European Economic Area member states have adopted the same EC Directives on clinical trials and on good clinical practice (GCP) there are still very significant differences in their research ethics committee (REC) systems. Many RECs operate without common standards and audit and many are not sufficiently funded. The article argues that standard setting is necessary in order to foster trust between researchers, patients and the public and outlines a number of different ways in which standards can be set and performance monitored.

The paper by Dixon-Woods and Angell describe a research project which can be seen as part of such standard setting and performance monitoring (page 377). In England and Wales research involving adults who lack capacity to consent is …