Social Value in Research Ethics

Conducting research is an integral part of societal betterment and requires a huge amount of time, energy, resources, and focus. Nevertheless, while research can provide excellent new opportunities for people, it remains vital to ensure that your firm is promoting social value in research ethics at every opportunity. Luckily, there are several ways you can go about this, and one such option you should consider very carefully is how you can provide social value to your customers in research ethics. But how does social value apply in research ethics, and is this genuinely an important goal for your business to pursue?

What is Social Value in Research Ethics?

Social value is a very broad term and may not necessarily be a simple thing to outline since it can manifest in numerous forms. However, at its simplest, social value is a measure of the positive changes that activities – such as business operations – can bring to the local community.

The concept behind social value is simple: businesses and researchers should work closely with their local communities to deliver services that bolster social happiness and sustainability rather than oppressing these opportunities. As such, regardless of your area of work, it’s integral to keep social value as a main driving factor at all times.

How Does Social Value Apply in Research Ethics?

Social value is readily applied to business applications, and it’s easy to understand how this could work. For example, the social value of a construction project is pretty easy to define; the project could boost social value locally by supporting local businesses, providing new infrastructure for the local community, and the like. However, from a research perspective, it’s a little trickier.

Now, the majority of research projects, by their very nature, have some form of social value. After all, research projects aim to benefit our nations, businesses, and communities. However, while these research projects strive to provide such benefits, it’s essential to consider that they may not always give suitable consideration to social value during the research ethics stage.

Research ethics at their most simple, are a collection of values and ethics to which researchers must adhere. Most often, we assume these to mean more clear-cut ethics, such as not infringing on data sharing policies and ensuring any participants in the research give full consent. However, social value can also apply during the research ethics stage, and researchers should ideally aim to define how the work will support social value both during and after the project’s completion.

It’s also important to note that social value is something that should apply throughout the duration of the research project – not just while defining research ethics. So, while including social value in research ethics is integral, it’s critical to ensure this is maintained throughout the duration of the research work for the best possible results.

Final Thoughts

The nature of research work is such that it should eventually provide value to the consumer. This social value could be direct (for example, in the form of a new treatment for health conditions) or indirect, such as by supporting businesses in new ways to cut costs. Whatever the case might be, however, it’s critical to ensure that social value is promoted at all stages of the research process, and this is just as important during the research ethics stage.

Indeed, your project’s research ethics directly outline how you will conduct the research, how this could impact the participants, and the like – as such, it’s the ideal opportunity also to consider social value and ensure your research ethics take this into account. In doing so, you can help minimize the impacts of social value on your research project and, critically, ensure your research project delivers the intended value to as many people as possible.