Research Agendas

While each article in this issue of JERHRE raises important questions that call for empirical research, one article—the editorial—subsumes all issues raised by the rest of the articles herein. It is a call to make full use of the allowed freedom to design an improved system of ethical problem solving and ethical oversight in human research. Being an ethical researcher is often cast in terms of compliance with ethics committee rules. In some contexts those rules, inflexibly applied, may cause unnecessary delay, damage and hindrance to important research projects. Stated otherwise, they may impose unethical requirements on research. Yet it is the very inaction or compliance of researchers and research administrators that causes us to fail to help create systems of research oversight that work—that foster valid and ethical research and advance human society.