Research Ethics: Research that involves human subjects or participants raises
unique and complex ethical, legal, social and political issues.
Research ethics is specifically interested in the analysis of
ethical issues that are raised when people are involved as
participants in research. There are three objectives in research
ethics. The first and broadest objective is to protect human
participants. The second objective is to ensure that research is
conducted in a way that serves interests of individuals, groups
and/or society as a whole. Finally, the third objective is to
examine specific research activities and projects for their ethical
soundness, looking at issues such as the management of risk,
protection of confidentiality and the process of informed
consent.