RESEARCH ETHICS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES.

1. How to make sense of and deal
with research ethics in Political
Science and IR
Vassilis Petsinis (PhD Birmingham)
Associate Professor of Political Science
Institute of Global Studies
Corvinus University of Budapest

2. How to deal with research ethics in the Social
Sciences
 What is research ethics?
 Why and how have research ethics started becoming increasingly
relevant in the Social Sciences (e.g. Political Science and IR), too?
 What is plagiarism? How to avoid it?
 How to comply with research ethics during the accumulation of
data?
How to comply with research ethics during the procession and
coding of data?
 How to comply with research ethics in the storage of data?

3. A general definition: What is research ethics?
 A set of ethical regulations and constraints with the objective to prevent any,
either intentional or unintentional, act of misconduct in academic research
 Research ethics regulations have always been of centrality and essential
importance in academic disciplines such as Medicine, the Biosciences, and STEM
Studies
 BUT: Research ethics are also becoming increasingly topical in the Social
Sciences, especially as far as the accumulation, coding, and procession of data
from human participants is concerned (e.g. research interviewing)
 Research ethics are prescribed and regulated by a series of legal documents
tasked with overseeing research conduct on various levels of jurisdiction (e.g.
national, EU/European, as well as international educational authorities and
institutions) (NB. Varying degrees of rigor within different institutional contexts)
 These official and legal terms may be updated on a regular basis

4. Research ethics and the Social Sciences
 Necessity to safeguard the principle of confidentiality, as well as the
welfare and privacy of human participants (namely, the informants),
especially in academic research with political, societal, ideological, and/or
ethno-cultural connotations
 Necessity to protect, or even restrict and prohibit access to, vulnerable
categories of potential informants
 E.g. individuals belonging to endangered social groups (for instance,
displaced persons and/or refugees as well as members of certain ethnic
minorities), individuals facing danger of political persecution, etc.
 Necessity to prevent academic fraud (e.g. the potential falsification,
misrepresentation, and mismanagement of research data)
 NB. The moral dimension of sensitivity to any potentially intrusive aspects
of qualitative research in the Social Sciences

5. What is plagiarism?
 A rather frequent form of, either intentional or accidental, misconduct in
the global academia
 Plagiarism usually involves the misappropriation and/or
misrepresentation (even falsification) of the academic output produced by
some other person in one’s own piece of work – especially secondary
sources of data (e.g. academic books and articles) but not exclusively
 In its more regular version, plagiarism becomes manifest through the,
either deliberate or accidental, misquotation of another person’s research
in one’s own work – usually through the absence of a relevant reference to
the original source inside the text
 In strict terms, plagiarism is a form of theft of intellectual property

6. How to avoid plagiarism?
 Always make sure to insert proper referencing to the original source (e.g. XXXX, 2023) -
either inside the body of the text or as a footnote/endnote, depending on the system of
references used (e.g. Harvard or Chicago)
 In particular, make sure to insert any long quotations from other authors or sources into
quotation marks
 References to one’s own previous works in his/her more recent texts is also necessary in
order to avoid self-plagiarism
 Inserting large chunks of a work produced by some other author into one’s own text may
also count as plagiarism even if the reference to the original source is formally provided
 URKUND and other electronic services tasked with detecting instances of plagiarism in
academic texts
 NB. In the last 10-15 years, there have been several instances of high-profile politicians
across CEE (also Germany) who, as it turned out through the use of URKUND and/or other
electronic systems, they had plagiarized a considerable fraction of their doctoral theses

7. Research ethics in the accumulation of data
 A formal application to be submitted to the national autority (REC) tasked with the supervision of
research ethics that explains why conducting these interviews is necessary for the project
 Necessity to clarify in advance the ‘personal elements’ that may be addressed during a research
interview with political underpinnings
 Making sure that there is no conflict of interest on the interviewee’s part (e.g. with the
organization or institution that they represent)
 Provision of the interviewees with a research abstract and an informed form of consent (i.e. a
‘framework declaration of agreement’) in advance
 Granting the interviewees the option to decline answering certain of the questions if they decide
to do so
 Conducting the interview in a location mutually agreed upon between the researcher and the
interviewee (tentative suggestion: To avoid using an interview recorder and camera)
 Conducting interviews with members of endangered social categories (e.g. refugees and/or
displaced persons) only through an institution tasked with their welfare that grants an approval to
the researcher

8. Research ethics in the coding and procession
of data
 Maintaining the anonymity of the interviewees unless instructed otherwise (i.e. When
the interviewee grants the researcher the ‘green light’ to mention his/her name and
other personal details in the research output published or publicly presented)
 If not, the names of interviewees will appear in a codified version in any publication
and/or public presentation (e.g. EE1, HR4, SK6, HU7, LV8, etc.)
 Pledge that any publications that may include, if only partially, the data accumulated in
the research interview will employ an objective and neutral language
Drawing a clear line between the original words of the informant and how the researcher
interprets and analyzes them
 Always rely on the existing academic literature for data analysis (theoretical framework
and research methodology of the study)
 Sending the codified and standardized versions of the research interviews to the
interviewees for a final ‘proof reading’ and approval

9. Research ethics in the storage of data
 Carefully store the research abstracts, interview questionnaires,
informed forms of consent, the actual transripts of the research
interviews, as well as the official research ethics approval from the
national REC in question (handwritten as well as electronic versions)
 Store documents containing names and signatures of the
participants (e.g. the informed forms of consent) separately
 Store the electronic data in a separate storage section provided by
your university/other research institution and use a strong, as well as
highly confidential, password
 Consider discarding of/destroying all research data stored, as soon as
it is no longer relevant and useful (e.g. after a period of 8-10 years)

10. Thank you for the attention! 