Enhancing Research Ethics Review Systems in Egypt: The Focus of an International Training Program Informed by an Ecological Developmental Approach to Enhancing Research Ethics Capacity

Abstract

Recently, training programs in research ethics have been established to enhance individual and institutional capacity in research ethics in the developing world. However, commentators have expressed concern that the efforts of these training programs have placed “too great an emphasis on guidelines and research ethics review”, which will have limited effect on ensuring ethical conduct in research. What is needed instead is a culture of ethical conduct supported by national and institutional commitment to ethical practices that are reinforced by upstream enabling conditions (strong civil society, public accountability, and trust in basic transactional processes), which are in turn influenced by developmental conditions (basic freedoms of political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security). Examining this more inclusive understanding of the determinants of ethical conduct enhances at once both an appreciation of the limitations of current efforts of training programs in research ethics and an understanding of what additional training elements are needed to enable trainees to facilitate national and institutional policy changes that enhance research practices. We apply this developmental model to a training program focused in Egypt to describe examples of such additional training activities.

Current Status of Research Ethics Capacity in Myanmar

“…[and to] promote a research culture, research environment and research capacity in the universities and departments under MOHS" (Htwe 2018). Such an emphasis is important as potential misconduct practices may stem from a previous culture that tolerated corruption and lacked accountability mechanisms (Edwards et al 2015). Previous survey studies performed in other LMICs exposed to totalitarian regimes have shown high prevalence of misconduct practices (Felaefel et al 2017, Okonta andRossouw 2014).…”

“…Chairs of the 16 RECs associated with the public universities were asked to complete anonymously a scored self-assessment tool (maximum points = 200) (Oo et al 2017b). The results showed that the RECs in Myanmar, similar with RECs in other LMICs, face similar challenges that include the lack of a nationwide regulatory framework, absence of oversight at the national level, lack of expertise in research ethics among the REC members, failure to have essential policies and standard operating policies, inadequate human and material resources, and the lack of a budget from the institution (Milford et al 2006;Sleem et al 2010;Edwards et al 2015;Moodley and Myer 2007). The Myanmar survey showed that the average number of members is 13.6 (range = 7-19) with appropriate gender balance (12 RECs had a female/ male ratio > 1.0).…”

Defining Malaysia's health research ethics system through a stakeholder driven approach

“…This framework has been used to analyze HRE systems on a regional 4 and national basis. 5 While this representation of a HRE system places HRE systems into their larger political, cultural, and economic contexts, it was designed primarily to highlight how a country's stage of development relates to its institutions' capacity to promote ethical research conduct; it therefore remains at a high level of abstraction. Others have proposed frameworks that are more specific to HRE systems at institutional and REC levels, 6 but these may not account for how institutions and RECs function in relation to one another to constitute a HRE system.…”

Exploring Institutional Research Ethics Systems: A Case Study From Uganda

“…Therefore, capacity development must also occur on institutional levels with a strong focus on supportive models of partnership. We see this focus on institutional-level capacity as critical for enabling a wider “culture of ethical conduct” within the developmental context of LMICs (Edwards, Hifnawy, and Silverman 2014). …”