Research Ethics & IRB Preparation Framework

Research ethics protocols fail when they treat ethics as a compliance exercise — checking boxes for an IRB application without genuinely engaging with the ethical obligations to research participants. The ethical question is not "what do we need to disclose to satisfy the IRB?" but "what do participants need to know to make a genuinely informed decision about participation, and what protections will we build into the study to minimize harm?"

The Research Ethics Framework identifies the specific risks of this study design and population, designs consent procedures proportional to those risks, and builds ethical protections at each stage of the research process rather than treating ethics as a pre-approval formality.