Reflections about handling interview data from third countries at European universities: Collaboration opportunities and/or risky business for participants and researchers?

Abstract

Through reflections about a case study concerning an unfeasible, planned research study on nurses’ working days during the COVID-19 pandemic, the article aims to describe and discuss legal and ethical challenges when conducting European-based research together with nurses in third countries. The article highlights how the General Data Protection Regulation challenges EU and non-EU research collaborations and research across borders in healthcare research. Digitally recorded interview data can be traced, putting both research participants and researchers at risk in relation to confidentiality, safety and potential critical views by national regimes. This raises ethical claims for research collaborations between EU and third countries and hampers the possibilities to make silent voices discernible through research. It is a questionable solution both to collaborate and not to collaborate with third countries such as China. Further reflections on the ways forward to facilitate research collaboration between EU and third countries are needed.

The Ethics of Using News Stories concerning Minors as Empirical Material in Health Research: Reflections on a Swedish Case

“…49 The idea of the GDPR is essentially good, but interpretation and implementation of the regulation have consequences far beyond its intended purpose, not least in research, when research ethics and the GDPR overlap. 50 The submission of an ethical approval is resource consuming in terms of both time and money, at times leading to a tacit exclusion of research by researchers with limited economic resources. In addition, it can complicate international research collaboration, as researchers in Sweden, unlike in other countries, need to follow special requirements regarding the use of publicly published material with health content about individuals as empirical material in research.…”