Formulating National Standards for Research Ethics Support and Review: The UKRIO/ARMA Case

Abstract

This chapter describes and analyses the background to and development of a national guidance framework for research ethics review that was commissioned by the United Kingdom Research Integrity Officeand the Association of Research Managers and Administrators, and launched in 2020. Unlike the centrally-controlled UK Health Research Authority research ethics review system for health and social care research, ethics review of research outside these fields is not nationally controlled and is conducted within a wide variety of organisational structures. The development process had to adopt an approach that consulted widely and sought to ensure broad take-up of the guidance by offering a flexible approach to compliance with a set of superordinate principles, while meeting the expectations of the governmentfunding body for the higher education sector as well as those of the UK research councils.