Conducting and managing commissioned research

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Introduction
Part 1: The Ethical Conduct of Research: professional standards, ethical codes, legal requirements and data protocols
Part 2: The Management of Research Projects
Further reading and bibliography

Introduction

This resource, like the others, is concerned mainly with contract research, that is, research commissioned and procured by an external organisation – in the private or public sector – within defined parameters of time, budget, objectives and sometimes design. These parameters constitute the main components of the contract, which is a legally-binding agreement between the agency and the research provider (whether individual or institutional). The degree of detail and the specific terms of any contract vary from agency to agency, and most research providers have legal/financial specialists whose job is to check the small print to ensure that the terms are acceptable from the institution’s point of view. It is customary to refer to the commissioning agency (and/or the representative thereof) as the client or customer, to whom the researcher as contractor is providing a specified service; this terminology itself indicates that the relationship is a much more direct, and directive, one than that between researchers and grant-givers or funders.

Because educational research concerns, and often directly deals with, persons and societal change, issues of participants’/respondents’ safety, confidentiality and so forth on the one hand and of the truthfulness of the knowledge claims being made on the other place an obligation on researchers to pay close attention to the ethics of research; and to conduct themselves in accordance with professional standards and accepted ethical guidelines, codes or protocols. Moreover, there are areas of research activity that are governed not only by social and moral considerations but also by legal requirements, such as those covering child protection and the use/storage of personal information. This resource is in no sense a definitive guide to the relevant legislation but it gives some websites and other resources that may be helpful in awareness-raising.

As well as conforming to high ethical standards, research in education should aim to be well managed in order to achieve desired outputs and outcomes. The management of research, in common with other kinds of social and organisational effort, encompasses the planning, organising, staffing, leading/directing and monitoring of human, financial and technological resources. All research studies – even small-scale studies with only one researcher – are projects that require some level of management.

Part One: The Ethical Conduct of Research: Professional Standards, Ethical Codes, Legal Requirements and Data Protocols

The ethical conduct of research – codification, regulation and responsibilities

Research in the social sciences, including education, has been largely self-regulating with regard to ethical and professional standards, relying on compliance with non-mandatory guidelines for activities and behaviour on the one hand and voluntary scrutiny of written material (such as proposals and end of project reports) by peers on the other. And, whilst compliance with guidelines and participation in peer review are the responsibility of individuals, the development and codification of research ethics is not the prerogative of any single group or individual but is seen as a collective and publicly-enacted professional duty:

‘the security of knowledge does not reside in the design features of particular studies, still less in the character traits of individuals, but in the publicly enforced norms of the professional community’ (National Research Council 2002)

The American Educational Research Association casts the net of responsibility for research ethics wider, to include those who fund or commission research:

‘Researchers, research institutions, and sponsors of research jointly share responsibility for the ethical integrity of research.’ (AERA website)

However, the perceived need for the codification of ethics seems to have become more pressing over the last few years. Partly this arises from notions of researchers’ responsibilities – basically, in relation to persons whom they are researching and to the creation of knowledge – and their rights – basically, in relation to academic independence; and from the fact that these rights and responsibilities give rise to dilemmas and competing claims which need to be articulated within a framework that helps to manage and resolve them. A simple example of such a dilemma is the potential conflict between obtaining the highest possible response rate to a survey (to ensure legitimacy of inference) and protecting the participants/respondents from intrusion (by excessive attempts to elicit information from them). Another example is whether a researcher should report his concerns about a school in which he is conducting research on terms of confidentiality. Underlying both hypothetical situations is the real question of whether it is more reasonable to leave the resolution of such issues to individual judgement or to try to specify desirable/required courses of action on the basis of a predetermined set of principles.

Bridges et al. (2007) put it like this:

‘…educational research raises questions as to (i) the obligations which are properly imposed on a researcher out of respect for the interests or rights of participants in the research and out of care for them as persons, but also, and especially where the researcher is investigating people in positions of power, (ii) the rights and obligations of the researcher in the service of wider public and academic understanding. We have to ask: what are these obligations? And, in a slightly more philosophical vein, how can we determine what they are? How do we know? By reference to what broader considerations can we resolve competing claims?’

Ethical codes and guidelines even as they proliferate tend to cover similar territory, broadly as follows:

Researchers’ responsibilities to:

participants/respondents
funders/clients
the general public
the field

Researchers’ responsibilities for:

defensible design and conduct of research studies
defensible analysis and interpretation of data
defensible dissemination and utilisation of research outcomes
disclosure of funding source(s) and possible influences on impartiality
fair and honest peer review of other’s research

Participants’/respondents’ rights as individuals:

freedom from harm, coercion or intrusion
informed consent, including understanding of any risks
non-disclosure of personal information as the default
right of withdrawal at any stage without explanation

Additional rights of vulnerable participants/respondents, such as children and vulnerable adults:

onus on researchers to ascertain status
informed consent of parent/carer and school/institution
opportunity to decline participation, even if consent given by parent/carer and/or school/institution

Funders’/clients’ responsibilities as commissioners/users of research:

appropriate use of public monies
research publication and dissemination (except when commercially sensitive)
research utilisation

Society’s rights:

public trust, in terms of design and conduct of any given research
public good (which may be indirect), in terms of outcomes of any given research
public confidence, in terms of research as worthwhile investment of public monies

Such codifications of ethics are most often produced by professional bodies, learned societies and academic institutions, partly as protection for their members and partly to reassure the public about standards of conduct. Ethical codes are usually a combination of principles and procedures and often, more problematically, of minimum standards and aspirations. They vary in the degree of prescription they enjoin, the ways (if any) in which compliance is monitored and the kinds of sanction imposed for breach of code.

For example, the British Educational Research Association deems its ethical guidelines to be a ‘binding responsibility’ on its members, though it also rather confusingly states that the guidelines ‘will provide a basis for deliberation and perhaps resolution or compromise’. The Economic and Social Research Council’s Research Ethics Framework is ‘mandatory for all ESRC-funded research’ and includes a requirement for each institution to set up a research ethics committee, whose remit includes establishing procedures for monitoring the conduct of research and for receiving and addressing complaints. The Market Research Society (MRS)[1] requires members ‘to comply with the MRS Code of Conduct which is enforced through a disciplinary process’. At the other end of the scale, the European RESPECT guidelines are unequivocally ‘intended to form the basis of a voluntary code of practice’ and to be ‘an aspirational code, not a prescriptive one’, designed ‘to aid responsible and informed-decision-making’. [Website addresses for examples of different ethical codes are given below.]

In case it needs saying, researchers conducting commissioned research have just as much responsibility for considering and handling ethical issues as those engaged in grant-funded research[2]; so, for example, the MRS makes clear that, with regard to the conduct of any given piece of research, the requirements of its Code take precedence over clients’ demands and members can invoke the Code.

In summary, then, compliance with principles and procedures is seen as important both for the legal operation and the public standing of research, but compliance is no substitute for ethical thinking and willed moral behaviour on the part of individual researchers. This no doubt explains the wording of some codes which seem to want it both ways – both prescribing/proscribing certain behaviours and encouraging researchers to contribute to the debate about ethics and ethical practice.

However, the discourse (and increasingly the apparatus) of compliance, even though it may be only part of the complex story ethical codes are trying to tell, has led some academics[3] to question the codes’ purpose and efficacy. Some see the codes and their accompanying procedural arrangements as ritualistic manifestations of an ‘audit society’ concerned with the external imperatives of performativity and organisational accountabilities, which are effectively de-professionalising social research and even infantilising participants (see, for example, Torrance 2007); others believe that codes come between a researcher and her own moral decision-making and argue that the ‘ethics industry’ cannot either practicably or morally ‘bureaucratize’ what are essentially matters for individual professional judgement (see, for example, Simons and Usher 2000, Penn and Soothill 2007). Yet others would like ethics committees and the like to be less concerned with regulatory functions, and instead to strengthen the opportunities for collective reflection and discussion (Hammersley 2006) – which would lend more weight to the often-made assertion in the preambles of codes that ethical issues are complex and involve authentic conflicts of interest.

Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2001) and Bridges et al. (op.cit.) both offer brief but illuminating discussions of ethical issues and positions – for the former, read Chapter 2 ‘The ethics of educational and social research’, and for latter, go to the website (http://www.tlrp.org/capacity/rm/wt/bridges) and click on the item ‘Ethical codes: issues’.

Many writers rightly observe that codes cannot anticipate all possible dilemmas that might arise in every particular situation and a fortiori cannot give comprehensive practical advice. The TLRP website makes this useful distinction between codes and protocols, as follows:

‘The ethical codes of academic and professional bodies and particular academic institutions… are designed to deal with a wide variety of research in many different circumstances. Clearly any particular piece of research will be expected to meet the relevant requirements of these codes, but the researchers will also need to develop a protocol to govern the conduct of a particular piece of research in particular circumstances. This will serve to inform participants in the research of their rights in relation to the research and/or the expectations of the researcher.’ http://www.tlrp.org/capacity/rm/wt/bridges/bridges9.html

For a detailed personal account of how ethical dilemmas can arise in school-based research, what they look/feel like, how they can be theorised and, importantly, how they are not ultimately separable from their broader context of the ethics of teaching, schooling and education, see Mockler 2007.

For an account of how ethics committees can construe their remit and discharge their responsibilities sensitively and intelligently – and model the ethical decision-making process – see Gorman 2007:

‘An ethics committee should always remember to:

listen to researchers

invite researchers to be part of the committee

rotate researchers on the committee

invite researchers to meet with and give input to the committee

learn from researchers about their needs and professional field and any concerns they may have

be fair

be transparent

be flexible

be positive and encouraging in its response

always justify comments and decisions and link [them] to ethical principles and guidelines

differentiate between ethical and administrative/methodological comments

be aware of the potential impact of comments and requirements on researchers

always offer a way forward

never close off dialogue

ensure ongoing critical reflection of their [sic] own practice.’

Extract from Gorman 2007.

It is useful to consider one particular aspect of ‘informed consent’, that is, giving participants/respondents information about the full provenance of the research. The MRS spells out exactly what information should be provided to potential participants about the organisation undertaking research, as follows:

‘B19 Members must ensure that Respondents are able to check without difficulty the identity and bona fides of any individual and/or their employer conducting a research project (including any sub-contractors).

B21 Members must ensure that all of the following are clearly communicated to the Respondent:

the name of the interviewer (an Interviewer’s Identity Card must be shown if face to face);

an assurance that the interview will be carried out according to the MRS Code of Conduct;

the general subject of the interview;

the purpose of the interview;

if asked, the likely length of the interview;

any costs likely to be incurred by the Respondent.’

http://www.mrs.org.uk/standards/downloads/code2005.pdf

This raises in turn an important issue which is near the heart of research ethics. Although it is laudable to hope that educational research is carried out between consenting equals in a democratic environment (Penn and Soothill 2007), it is not self-evident that this can or should be taken for granted. Apart from the fact that some participants perceive themselves as somehow, and perhaps rather vaguely, not in an equal position (which researchers are obliged to address if only in the interests of trustworthy data collection), it seems right that there should be a procedure in place which makes it straightforward for participants to raise concerns or even a complaint – however unlikely researchers believe it is that participants could suffer harm through involvement in social research (Hammersley 2006, Torrance 2007[4]. Ethical considerations require that there be systematised attempts to mitigate the power that researchers have, not as individuals but through their social status as academics and/or professionals, in relation to participants/respondents – it is hard to see how ‘individual professional judgement’ could be sufficient to achieve this.

For practical advice on negotiating access, see the checklist provided in Chapter 2 of Cohen, Manion and Morrison (op.cit.).

Finally in this section, it might be useful to say a few words about ‘participants’, ‘respondents’ and ‘subjects’, since so far the first two terms have been used interchangeably and the third not at all. As Doyle says (2007) ‘participant’ ‘suggests an active, willing, engaging role rather than [‘subject’, which suggests] a passive and possibly oblivious character in the text.’ But, as he then implies, conferring the name does not guarantee the actuality, and ‘participants’ can be turned into ‘subjects’ by what researchers unintentionally do or fail to do. People may also be passive ‘subjects’ in a non-detrimental sense if, for example, they are part of an observation exercise of an entire site such as a school. ‘Respondent’ is a more neutral term but tends to be used in the context of research surveys where people are being asked a set number of fairly circumscribed questions, and for that reason seems less applicable to more open-ended or naturalistic research, such as ethnography. A different rationale for terminology applies in the cases cited by Hammersley (op.cit.) and Penn and Soothill (op.cit.), of the desirability of conducting covert research on people in positions of power – such folk being unlikely, it is claimed, to agree to participate in research whose purpose is to hold their actions up to public scrutiny. Here, ‘subject’ seems entirely the appropriate word, since their rights to give informed consent and to withdraw from the research (and possibly also to confidentiality and anonymity) are being deliberately withheld. On the one hand, if research is to fulfil its societal obligations, the rationale for covert research in some circumstances must at least be contemplated. On the other, it is highly problematic if ‘people in positions of power’ remains an unbounded group to be defined by individual researchers on an ad hoc basis. The BERA Ethical Guidelines accordingly state that:

‘Decisions to use deception or subterfuge in research must be the subject of full deliberation and subsequent disclosure in reporting. The Association recommends that approval for this course of action should be obtained from a local or institutional ethics committee.’ (Para. 12)

The MRS gives its members guidance about what is (i) deemed to be ethical practice in such contexts (see particularly the guidelines about permission to quote and transparency, in the section on business-to-business research); (ii) permissible practice within the terms of the Data Protection Act.

The English National Teacher Research Panel (NTRP) has put some flesh on the bones of ‘participation’ from the particular perspective of schools and teachers; it has devised a series of sample questions for schools to ask researchers when considering whether to agree to host a research project: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ntrp/ourwork/hostingresearch/

‘…Conduct of the research

…Are there assurances about:

how the data collected about teachers, teaching and learning or other aspects of school organisation are to be checked with those involved in generating them? For example, will teachers who are interviewed have access to records of the interview? Will the teachers or the school have a chance to comment on profiles draft questionnaires, Proformas, Interview schedules?

whether the sample will target a range of teacher effectiveness and how is this to be defined? If so what will teachers need and want to know about how their work is being evaluated?

whether the teachers and/or the school have chance to comment on written outputs?

how disagreements about data or reports will be negotiated and reconciled?

whether there are proper arrangements for observing pupils and for parental permission?

Extract from ‘Hosting research in school: securing benefits for schools, teachers and researchers’: http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ntrp/ourwork/hostingresearch/

Let us give the provisional last word to Torrance (2007):

‘Requirements and procedures are the least important element of research ethics. We must try to ensure that the debate about research ethics is kept open, both with respect to the role of ‘governance’ and how this relates to definitions of research quality, and with respect to the treatment of research design, fieldwork and reporting, which produce the actual dilemmas of research activity.’

[1] The MRS is an industry body as well as a professional body, having taken over the functions of the BMRA (British Market Research Association) when the latter ceased to exist – though in reality the MRS has always represented the interests of market researchers as ‘service providers/producers’ as well as articulating and upholding the professional standards of research. This dual functionality is probably true of the other professional bodies mentioned in this Resource too.

[2] In 2009 BERA set up a working group to explore whether and how far research contracts tend to be aligned with (or to contravene) the clauses of BERA’s ethical guidelines.

[3] Underlying some of these avowed positions is an apparent rejection of the legitimacy of regulation per se and a distrust of the very notion of state – or State – control (in which one can perhaps hear a faint echo of Engels’ contention that the state is essentially a body of armed men).

[4] The SRA Ethical Guidelines give specific hypothetical examples of harm resulting from research findings, such as: ‘A particular district may, for instance, be negatively stereotyped by an inquiry that finds that it contains a very high incidence of crime’. The Guidelines also note that people can feel wronged without being harmed – researchers should strive to avoid ‘inconsiderateness’.

Some key ethical codes, frameworks and guidelines

AERA (American Educational Research Association) Ethical Standards: http://www.aera.net/AboutAERA/Default.aspx?menu_id=90&id=222 or full text PDF: http://www.aera.net/uploadedFiles/About_AERA/Ethical_Standards/EthicalStandards.pdf

BERA (British Educational Research Association) Ethical Guidelines: http://www.bera.ac.uk/files/2008/09/ethica1.pdf

ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) Ethical Framework: http://www.esrc.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/Images/ESRC_Re_Ethics_Frame_tcm6-11291.pdf

GSR (Government Social Research) Ethical Assurance Guidance: http://www.gsr.gov.uk/downloads/professional_guidance/ethical_assurance/ethics_guidance_summary.pdf (summary)

http://www.gsr.gov.uk/downloads/professional_guidance/ethical_assurance/ethics_guidance.pdf (full text)

These documents are part of the Government Social Research Professional Standards Guidance: http://www.gsr.gov.uk/professional_guidance/index.asp:

‘Government Social Researchers are bound by the Civil Service Code and its core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality. Commitment to these values is required of all members of the Home Civil Service. As an addendum to the Civil Service Code, the GSR Code sets out specific principles to guide the work and behaviour of Government Social Researchers.’

MRS (Market Research Society) Code of Conduct: http://www.mrs.org.uk/standards/downloads/code2005.pdf

(Some education researchers may query why the MRS is referenced here, as its remit and constituencies may seem not to be relevant to education. Besides the fact that many MRS members have conducted research in education, the MRS publishes a Code of Conduct together with a series of specific and detailed guidelines for different kinds and contexts of research.)

RESPECT code of practice (European Commission): http://www.respectproject.org/main/index.php

SRA (Social Research Association) Ethical Guidelines: http://www.the-sra.org.uk/ethical.htm and http://www.the-sra.org.uk/documents/pdfs/ethics03.pdf The SRA guidelines also devote an entire section to bibliographic references on ethical issues under different sub-headings.

Lastly, the TLRP website has some additional examples of codes and protocols, as well as key bibliographic references – go to http://www.tlrp.org/capacity/rm/wt/bridges and click on the various items listed.

TASK A

Compare the key ethical codes and guidelines in terms of one aspect – such as ‘informed consent of participants/respondents’, ‘responsibilities to sponsors/clients’, ‘reporting and publication’ – and set out their main similarities and differences in terms of:

what is covered and what is omitted by each (one interesting example might be enabling participation in research by hard-to-reach groups);

how far each is prescriptive or discursive in style/intention;

how far each is helpful in supporting an early career researcher to develop his/her thinking and practice;

how far each promotes the notion of collective responsibility and a sense of obligation to the research community as a whole;

how far each articulates a view of researchers’ obligations to society;

the type and degree of sanction imposed for infringement.

TASK B

Look at the AERA guiding standards for sponsors, policymakers, and other users of research: http://www.aera.net/AboutAERA/Default.aspx?menu_id=90&id=202 and construct a scenario where a policy client might find one or other of these difficult to fulfil.

TASK C

Bridges et al. (op.cit.) tell us that:

‘within the broader framework of moral philosophy and philosophy of education, there is an extensive contemporary and historical literature which focuses on morality not so much in terms of rule-following or even obedience to one’s own principles but rather in terms of established characteristics or personal traits, habits of behaviour which have become deeply embedded in one’s personality and which, if they are seen to constitute forms of human excellence (either in general or in connection with particular worthwhile human activities) are referred to as virtue(s). One set of such virtues is of course the category of academic virtue (though there is debate as to whether such virtues are or are not distinguishable from general human virtues)’ [my emphasis]. http://www.tlrp.org/capacity/rm/wt/bridges/bridges5.html

They go on to offer this question ‘What might be the virtue(s) we look for or seek to develop in an educational researcher?’, first raised by Pring (2002). Based on your reading of (i) the key ethical codes and guidelines and (ii) the main objections raised against such instruments, draft an argument setting out the desirable ‘academic virtues’ of an educational researcher and your reasons for choosing these.

Working with children – educational research and child protection

Both because children and young people are considered to be ‘vulnerable’ and because there is recent and far-reaching legislation designed to protect children from potential abuse, researchers need to take especial account of the ethical and legal implications of their activities and behaviour vis-à-vis these groups of participants/respondents/subjects. Accordingly, most of the codes and guidelines mentioned so far contain specific clauses relating to children and young people and other vulnerable groups.

Before looking at these, we should briefly note some issues raised by researchers about this aspect of research with or about children and young people. On the one hand, there are those (for example, Hammersley 2006, Torrance 2007) who argue that it may be hard in some circumstances to elicit informed consent – including, presumably, from children – and therefore unrealistic to require it. Other researchers (e.g. Groundwater-Smith 2007) seem to be making an opposite claim, that eliciting consent from young people, especially when they are in school, should actually be strengthened into a means for getting ‘student voice’ to be heard and listened to – she argues that it is too easy for pupils to be manipulated or coerced into being involved in research on someone else’s terms, and they ought to be able to exercise greater agency.

Leeson (2007) encourages researchers to ‘investigate the model of children that lies at the heart [of anxieties about research with children]’, and this is certainly worth thinking about. Within the scope of this resource, it is only possible to point out that childhood may be thought about in a number of different ways and perceived, even constructed, through the lenses of quite different academic disciplines , for example:

anthropological/evolutionist
historical/cultural
physiological/psychological
philosophical
theological/spiritual
economic

– which in turn will have different consequences for how the status of children and young people is construed, including in ethical terms (see, for example, Suissa 2007).

Some codes make specific provision for research on/with children and young people, for example:

BERA Ethical Guidelines: http://www.bera.ac.uk/files/2008/09/ethica1.pdf

Paras. 14 – 19 deal with ‘children, vulnerable young people and vulnerable adults’ (although paras. 18 and 19 are generic rather than specific).

MRS Code of Conduct: http://www.mrs.org.uk/standards/downloads/code2005.pdf

Rules B26 to B33 of the MRS Code of Conduct contain specific mandatory provisions relating to research with children (see box for extract) and there are also detailed Guidelines at: http://www.mrs.org.uk/standards/downloads/revised/active/children_young_people_mar06.pdf

Children

Comment: The intention of the following provisions regarding the age of Respondents is to protect children who are potentially vulnerable members of society and to strengthen the principle of public trust.

B.26 Consent of a parent or responsible adult (acting in loco parentis) must be obtained

before interviewing a child under 16 in the following circumstances:

In home/at home (face-to-face and telephone interviewing)

Group discussions/depth interviews

Postal questionnaires

Internet questionnaires

Email

Where interviewer and child are alone together

In public places such as in-street/in-store central locations (see exception under

B27)

B.27 Interviews being conducted in public places, such as in-street/in-store/central locations, with 14 years olds or over, may take place without consent of a parent or responsible adult. In these situations Members must give an explanatory thank you note to the child.

Comment: Under special circumstances, permission to waive parental consent may be obtained, but only with the prior approval of the MRS Market Research Standards Board.

B.28 Where the consent of a parent or responsible adult is required Members must ensure that the adult is given sufficient information about the nature of the research to enable them to provide informed consent.

B.29 Members must ensure that the parent or responsible adult giving consent is recorded (by name, relationship or role).

B.30 For self-completion postal questionnaires, Members must ensure that:

when it is known (or ought reasonably to be known) that all or a majority of Respondents are likely to be under 16, these are addressed to the parent or responsible adult; and

when it is known (or ought reasonably to be known) that all or a majority of Respondents are likely to be under 16, that all questionnaires carry a note or notice explaining that consent is required for all children to participate.

B.31 For research administered electronically over the Internet, when it is known (or ought reasonably to be known) that all or a majority of Respondents are likely to be under 16, Members must ensure that Respondents are asked to give their age before any other personal information is requested. Further, if the age given is under 16, the child must be excluded from giving further personal information until the appropriate consent from a parent or responsible adult has been obtained.

B.32 In all cases, Members must ensure that a child has an opportunity to decline to take part, even though a parent or a responsible adult has given consent on their behalf. This remains the case if the research takes place in school.

B.33 Personal information relating to other people must not be collected from children unless for the purposes of gaining consent from a parent or a responsible adult.

Extract from MRS Code of Conduct: http://www.mrs.org.uk/standards/downloads/code2005.pdf

Even with these kinds of detailed clause in place (albeit only in some codes), we may want to question whether they are sufficient. As a fundamental principle, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) – to which all countries of the UK are signatories – enshrines the principle that ‘In all actions concerning children… the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration’. (The Department for Children, Schools and Families website has both summary and full text versions of the Convention. This suggests that there can be no conflict of interest where children are concerned – their interests take priority over any other considerations, including those of research.

Secondly, child protection legislation places a duty on adults working in all relevant professions, in collaboration with other organizations and authorities, to safeguard and promote the well-being of children.

‘It is important for all staff and others in contact with children to:

be aware of situations which may present risks and manage these;
plan and organise the work and the workplace so as to minimise risks;
as far as possible, be visible in working with children;
ensure that a culture of openness exists to enable any issues or concerns to be raised and discussed;
empower children – discuss with them their rights, what is acceptable and unacceptable, and what they can do if there is a problem.

In general it is inappropriate to:

spend excessive time alone with children away from others;
take children to your home, especially where they will be alone with you.’

Extract from ‘International Save the Children Alliance Protocol 1: Child Protection’

Educational researchers who work with children need to accept the implications of child protection and safeguarding for different aspects of their work from, for example, interviewing young people to using images of children in reports. Although they do not have the same type and level of responsibilities as child-care workers or teachers, researchers do need to be alert to potential indicators of abuse and neglect and to be familiar with local procedures for promoting and safeguarding the welfare of children, as well as understanding the principles of confidentiality and information-sharing.

In addition, there are duties placed on employers – including university departments – to ensure that if the circumstances require it children will be protected from contact with anyone who might harm them: these duties include the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) disclosure and clearance requirements.

University ethics committees generally do provide guidelines for appropriate activities and behaviour where children are concerned – such as those published by the Ethical Advisory Committee of Loughborough University, whose preamble states: ‘It is the responsibility of investigators to ensure that (i) they are aware of any legislation which could affect their research with children and/or young people and (ii) that all of those involved in their research are aware of these guidelines.’ The document goes on to provide brief guidance on contact, informed consent, chaperoning, etc., and notes the following about CRB procedures:

‘In terms of research involving children/young people, it is likely that the following scenarios will require a CRB disclosure to be undertaken:

Investigators with unsupervised access to child participants (i.e. if an investigator is likely to be alone in a room with one or more children/young people
Taking physical measurements from child participants
Requirement for child participants to remove any clothing
Recording child participants on video
Testing of new equipment
If requested by the sponsor of the research

Investigators are warned that seeking CRB clearance is a lengthy process which needs to be initiated well in advance of the commencement of a research project.’

Extract from ‘Guidance Notes for InvestigatorsWorking with Children and Young People’

The seriousness and sensitivity of these issues suggests that ethical guidelines for research need both to promote more active ethical engagement by researchers with the issues and to provide more detailed advice about researchers’ responsibilities whenever and however they are in contact with children and young people, than standard codes and protocols tend to offer. Guidelines need to be framed and communicated within an explicit discussion of research values as whole, otherwise there is a risk that some researchers will continue to regard codes and procedures as bureaucratic and restrictive. Leeson (op.cit.) gives an interesting and nuanced account of the issues she encountered, and resolved, in designing an ethical protocol within the format required by her university: ‘I would recommend to fellow researchers that they do not allow themselves to be put off by the anxieties of others, but challenge the basis of those fears, to investigate the model of children that lies at the heart.’

Handling information: legal requirements and protocols

Ethical codes and protocols have routinely given guidance to their members on issues of data collection, reporting (including disclosure) and publication – see, for example, BERA Ethical Guidelines paras. 23, 27, 39. But as the SRA argues:

‘In an era of advanced information and communications technology ethical concerns over access to and the management of information are heightened.’ (Background to the SRA Ethical Guidelines)

Unsurprisingly this has become another area where recent legislation – notably the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 – has affected the way data may be recorded, stored and reported, and the Codes cited in this resource have been revised to take account of these legal requirements, sometimes providing detailed guidance on their interpretation and application.

Data Protection Act

Under the terms of the Act, researchers have responsibilities and duties which may be extensive depending on the nature and scale of their research. Comprehensive guidance is available on the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office – see box below for a summary:

‘The Data Protection Act (1998) requires anyone who handles personal information to comply with a number of important principles. It also gives individuals rights over their personal information. The Data Protection Act gives individuals the right to know what information is held about them. It provides a framework to ensure that personal information is handled properly.

The Act works in two ways. Firstly, it states that anyone who processes personal information must comply with eight principles, which make sure that personal information is:

Fairly and lawfully processed
Processed for limited purposes
Adequate, relevant and not excessive
Accurate and up to date
Not kept for longer than is necessary
Processed in line with your rights
Secure
Not transferred to other countries without adequate protection

The second area covered by the Act provides individuals with important rights, including the right to find out what personal information is held on computer and most paper records.’

The MRS and SRA have published joint guidelines for social researchers to help them understand, interpret and apply the Data Protection Act 1998. See also: http://www.the-sra.org.uk/publications.htm

Freedom of Information Act

In practice, the Act applies more to organisations commissioning research rather than to researchers and research organisations, but it is still important for researchers to be familiar with its requirements. Again, full guidance is available on the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office – see box below for a summary:

The Freedom of Information Act (2000) deals with access to official information and gives individuals or organisations the right to request information from any public authority. The Freedom of Information Act applies to information that is held by a public authority and sets out which bodies and offices are considered public authorities for the purpose of the Act:

government departments (this includes Non-Departmental Government Bodies);
Parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the National Assembly for Wales;
the armed forces (but not Special Forces or units working with Government Communications Headquarters);
local authorities;
NHS bodies;
the Police;
other bodies and Offices such as regulators and advisory committees;
Wholly Owned Companies;
some bodies that are only covered for certain sorts of information such as the BBC and Channel 4.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has produced guidance for government statisticians and social researchers on implementing the Act; this covers confidential data, confidentiality, professional codes of conduct, contracts, copyright and intellectual property and addresses some frequently encountered issues. See: http://www.gsr.gov.uk/downloads/professional_guidance/foi/statnet_foi_guidance.pdf

See also: http://www.data-archive.ac.uk/home/PreservingSharing.pdf for guidance on preserving and sharing statistical data.

It is obvious that individual researchers and research managers should acquaint themselves fully with their legal obligations, but it is also incumbent on those in supervisory positions to ensure that individuals are given as much information and support as possible in implementing those duties. Researchers should feel free to ask their institutions for this help, especially if they are unsure of whether and how far the legislation applies to any particular study.

Other information issues: reporting of statistical data

A further and specific information issue is that of the (English) government’s use and reporting of statistical data, including disclosure control/confidentiality. The English Government Statistical Service has an overarching Code of Practice and a series of protocols covering all aspects of its work:

The National Statistics Code of Practice sets out the professional principles and standards which official statisticians are expected to follow and uphold.
The Code of Practice is supported by twelve Protocols which describe how those principles and standards are to be implemented in practice.

For more information, visit: http://www.ons.gov.uk/about-statistics/ns-standard/ – but note that ‘this Code will shortly be replaced by the UK Statistics Authority’s Code of Practice’.

Additionally, the Government Social Research Unit and the Government Statistical Service have agreed ‘the minimum standards necessary for disclosure control in order to ensure confidentiality of tabular outputs for public release’, one for tables produced from surveys and the other for tables produced from administrative data sources. The guidance is cited at http://www.gsr.gov.uk/professional_guidance/index.asp, under GSR Professional Standards Guidance, Disclosure Control – although the links to PDFs given here were not working as at March 2009. Putting the keywords ‘GSS disclosure control’ into a standard search engine can call up some of the documentation. The reason for the broken links would seem to be that the procedures and guidance were in the process of being revised at this time. This is an important area for researchers working in government and other high-profile policy organisations – some people may remember, for instance, the argument between the government’s Home Secretary and statisticians about what the latter declared was a premature release of statistics on knife crime in autumn 2008.

Other information issues: online social networking as a potential source of research data

The potential uses for research of social networking sites and interactive online material such as weblogs/blogs (sometimes described as ‘mobile, contextual, ubiquitous and ambient technologies’) have been discussed in social research literature for some time now. Claims made on behalf of such sources include the relative ease of access, the greater authenticity and richness of such self-reports compared with responses to conventional surveys, the fuller coverage of target populations especially amongst young people.

As one article (found pretty much at random, in the healthcare field) says:

‘Social networking sites are, as Mazur (2005, p. 180) noted, “mines of adolescent data.” The information is out there and is rich in substance and meaning; it just needs to be systematically collected and coded for generalizable analysis.’ Williams, A. and Merten, M. (2008). ‘A review of online social networking profiles by adolescents: implications for future research and intervention’, Adolescence, 43, 170, 253–74.

Leaving aside the possibility of multiple and/or fictional online identities and associated problems about the validity and reliability of such virtual ‘data’, this assertion begs several ethical questions, not least informed consent and right of withdrawal, but discusses none of them. For example, is it the case that, by sharing personal information on a networking site, a person can be deemed to have understood that this information is now in the public domain and, further, that s/he can be presumed to have given a priori consent to the ‘data’ being used by an unannounced third party for their research and in perpetuity?

Whilst research usage is not the most pressing ethical issue raised by online networking (given the major issues of individuals’ privacy, safety and so forth, which are logically and substantively prior to any research activity), the professional associations and learned societies need to be framing some guidance in this area that is consonant with existing ethical principles.

Some initial background reading (Boulton and Miller 2008, Carusi 2008, Carusi and Jirotka forthcoming) is given in the References section below: and note the existence of a new journal, the International Journal of Internet Research Ethics.

TASK A

As the MRS asks, ‘do you know how long survey records (questionnaires and tapes) should be kept?’ Use the various resources (including but not limited to the MRS Code/Guidelines) to write out some clear guidance to yourself as a future aide-mémoire.

TASK B

With a colleague (or, better, group of colleagues), discuss how you would go about framing some guidance about the use of online social networking data for research purposes. What general ethical principles would you most want to safeguard?

Publication and intellectual property rights

In the interests both of safeguarding academic freedom and of informing the public, most of the codes make reference to the right of researchers in normal circumstances to publish the findings of research. For their part, the (English) Department for Children, Schools and Families ‘endeavours to publish findings from the research it commissions within 12 weeks of the final completion date for a project. Research reports are published on [the website] on the last Thursday of each month, or to coincide with a related policy announcement… Results are published as full research reports and accompanying research briefs, which provide an overview of each report.’ http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research/programmeofresearch/index.cfm?type=5 However, not all clients are as prompt or eager to publish, and it is obviously advisable to negotiate and agree the terms of publication at the outset of a project and to have these recorded in the contract. Researchers acting as occasional consultants should be particularly aware of projects which may be commercially sensitive, and whose findings may in whole or part be confidential for that reason.

Conversely, given that researchers may occasionally (one hopes not frequently) come across this kind of attitude:

‘I buy research like I buy a sack of coal’, says one education officer… ‘and when I have bought it I expect to do what the hell I like with it.’ http://www.tlrp.org/capacity/rm/wt/bridges/bridges8.html

The BERA Guidelines make it plain that researchers, and sponsors, have the right to ‘dissociate themselves publicly from accounts of the research which they consider misleading or unduly selective’. The MRS Code of Conduct goes a little further in advising that:

‘Researchers must not knowingly allow the dissemination of conclusions from a marketing research project which are not adequately supported by the data. They must always be prepared to make available the technical information necessary to assess the validity of any published findings… When reporting on the results of a marketing research project the Researcher must make a clear distinction between the findings as such, the Researcher’s interpretation of these and any recommendations based on them.’

As the BERA Ethical Guidelines acknowledge, there may be some circumstances where the right to publish may be waived – such as researchers’ failure to comply with contractual or ethical obligations. However, the reasons for such waiver must be substantiated in each individual case and, if necessary, referred to a legal adviser.

Other issues in the reporting and publication of research are covered by guidance in some ethical codes, for example, the BERA Ethical Guidelines state that researchers have a responsibility to communicate the research findings and their practical implications in ‘a clear, straightforward fashion and in language appropriate to the intended audience’ (clause 41). BERA also gives useful guidance about authorship (clauses 47 and 48).

For a general overview of intellectual property rights/copyright, see: http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ipr/IntellectualProperty.htm

Edinburgh University has a useful website page on the relationship between data protection, freedom of information and intellectual property rights: http://www.recordsmanagement.ed.ac.uk/InfoStaff/FOIstaff/IPRFOIDPA/IPRFOIDPA.htm and http://www.recordsmanagement.ed.ac.uk/InfoStaff/FOIstaff/IPRFOIDPA/IPRPrelimV6.pdf

Researchers should note that research specifications and ITTs may be considered commercially or otherwise confidential, and are in any case the property of the client.

Researcher safety issues

Finally, in this overview of ethics, it is important to emphasise the legal responsibilities as well as the moral duty of institutions towards the safety of all researchers employed by them. The SRA has developed a stand-alone code of practice to help ensure the well-being and safe behaviour of researchers: http://www.the-sra.org.uk/publications.htm or http://www.the-sra.org.uk/documents/word/safety_code_of_practice.doc

Safety is a particular issue, of course, in qualitative research where researchers may be conducting fieldwork in situations that are potentially risky in one way or another. Concern about safety in the many different circumstances in which researchers can find themselves was the rationale for the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods Qualitative Research Mode to commission this survey in 2006:

‘Risks to the well-being of fieldworkers can take many forms, probably the most common being the emotional impact of spending time with – and perhaps empathizing with – research participants under sometimes desperate circumstances. There are occasions when researchers may encounter situations that threaten their physical health. Researchers might find themselves harassed or victimised because of gender or ethnic status. There are also issues surrounding the impact of some qualitative research on relations with partners and family. The kinds of experiences that have compromised researcher well-being call into question current research management practices, but also provoke a debate about whether the data gathered in situations that are not ‘safe’ or ‘good for you’ are worth the risk.’ (Fincham 2006)

The study reported in 2007 and its recommendations – which are aimed mainly at universities – are as follows:

‘Recommendations:

Postgraduate research methods course should include research safety in their curricula.

ESRC should consider whether provision of safety training in postgraduate research methods curricula should be a factor in determining whether those methods courses receive ESRC recognition.

University in-service training courses for PhD supervisors and principal investigators should include content on researcher safety.

All university departments should be subject to periodic health and safety audits, which would include examination of provision for researcher safety.

All funders should require principal investigators to comply with the SRA (or similar) safety guidelines.

All funders should formally invite referees to comment on researcher safety issues, where salient, as part of their assessment of applicants’ research methods.

All research ethics committees should accept formal responsibility for oversight of provision for postgraduate student safety, with safety issues being addressed in the context of a specific question on the application form and of the guidance notes on form completion.’

Extract from: FINCHAM, B., BLOOR, M. and SAMPSON, H. (2007). ‘Qualiti (NCRM) commissioned inquiry into the risk to well-being of researchers in qualitative research’,Qualitative Researcher, 6, 2–4. http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/qualiti/QualitativeResearcher/QR_Issue6_Sep07.pdf

TASK
Either:
Read the SRA Safety Guidelines and decide if there is anything you would want to add to (or omit from) the advice to researchers.
Or:
Look at the recommendations in the box above and decide how you would make them more specific/ relevant to your own institution. Draft a question on postgraduate student safety for inclusion on the application form as recommended in the final sentence in the box above.

Part Two: The Management of Research Projects

The management of research, in common with organisation of other kinds of social and institutional effort, encompasses the planning, organising, staffing, leading/directing and monitoring of human, financial and technological resources. All research studies – even small-scale studies with only one researcher – require management to some degree. Sometimes the crucial difference between a successful and an unsuccessful piece of research lies in the quality of management rather than in intellectual excellence. (Up to this point, these Resources have tended to use the terms ‘research study’ and ‘research project’ interchangeably; from now on the word ‘project’ will be used, so as to emphasise management. aspects.)

In this kind of general resource, it is obviously not sensible to try and give detailed prescriptions for the management of research projects: institutional structures and systems, as well as individual research projects, differ so widely that what might be true or necessary in one context could well be untrue or unhelpful in another. So the following sections give a brief overview of generic issues and provide links to relevant sources of information.

Can – or should – research be managed?

Before embarking on the more pragmatic aspects of research management, it is perhaps helpful to distinguish between operational and strategic management of research, in the sense that probably not many researchers would wish to claim that research cannot or should not be managed at an operational level. However, some have questioned the discourse of ‘managerialism’, ‘governance’ and ‘control’ that is said increasingly to pervade research as a direct result of Research Council funding conditions and government frameworks. Torrance (2007), for example, argues that this kind of ‘managerialism’ not only does not lead to more effective and ethical research, but rather imposes a uniformity, via a surveillance culture, on research in respect of its purpose and methods; and thereby serves to obscure ‘the political economy and social relations’ of research. He concludes:

‘…we seem to be faced with a much more self-conscious set of interventions, comprising a determined attempt by the state to control and manage social research and to re-write the parameters of how to define ‘research quality’. Research must now be ‘managed’ and ‘quality assured’ by ‘research governance’. Individual studies, no matter how theoretically and methodologically sophisticated, no matter well designed and how highly rated by peer review, cannot now be considered to be of high quality unless they are also located in a managed research environment and subject to monitoring and ‘governance’. Moreover, the guarantor of quality in this emergent system is no longer scrutiny by the scientific community, but rather the procedures embedded in the governance system and the managers who operate it.’

By way of comparison, you may want to look at the speech by Professor Eric Thomas, the then Vice-Chancellor of Bristol University, in 2006, which makes the case for research to be strongly managed at a strategic level. He quotes Sir Charles Hartington as saying, fifty years ago, that ‘…it may well be felt that original investigation must remain purely an intellectual activity that can only be pursued in conditions of complete freedom, inconsistent with any form of organization’, then going on to assert that this feeling is based on a nostalgia for a past era when knowledge creation was simpler, both methodologically and in terms of its social application. Thomas argues that in contrast:

‘[p]roblems such as the inter-generational persistence of poverty require a multi-disciplinary approach which includes anthropology, sociology, social policy and politics and crosses into genetics and human biology, to name but a few of the relevant disciplines. … it is inevitable that modern research does need organising or managing institutionally and that we have a duty to ensure that is done as effectively as possible.’ http://www.bristol.ac.uk/university/vc/research-mngt.html

For Thomas, the opposition between ‘academic freedom’ and ‘management’ is a false one:

‘It is commonly said that trying to manage and organise research, particularly at an institutional level, is antithetic to academic freedom. As head of an institution I will defend the right of our academics to explore whatever course of intellectual enquiry they wish, and will ensure they are not constrained in articulating their thoughts by the prevailing attitudes of society, government or the university leaders… However, academic freedom… does not give a right to request open-ended public funding with no management of that resource.’

In non-academic institutions which commission or create and use research, it is important to consider the functional role research may play in wider organisational management: for example, research is often treated as contributing to an organisation’s ‘knowledge management’ strategy. The definition of knowledge management given in Wikipedia is:

‘a range of practices used in an organisation to identify, create, represent, distribute and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, either embodied in individuals or embedded in organizational processes or practice… KM efforts typically focus on organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned and continuous improvement of the organization. KM… [focuses] on the management of knowledge as a strategic asset and on encouraging the exchange of knowledge.’

So this is just to make the point that the management of research – both strategic and operational – will need to be understood and practised in particular corporate contexts shaped by organisational aims and targets, as well as in generic academic terms.

Operational management of research: preparation and planning

Concentrating now on the operational management of research, it is safe to say that most training and development for research project management is ‘on the job’, and thus comprises a process of acculturation into social practices and the institutional modus operandi as least as much as deliberate teaching/learning. Focused mentoring can provide more structure and purpose to ‘on the job’ learning (see, for example, the TLRP Meeting of Minds fellowships or ask your institution for information about any mentoring opportunities that can be provided.)

The majority of management literature as well as systems-support – see below – relates to any form of organisational activity and is not specific to the management of research. (Textbooks on educational research project management, such as Burton et al. 2008, are helpful up to a point but tend to be written for M-level and doctoral students rather than for researchers working on commissioned contracts, and therefore do not deal with issues like client relationships and impact.)

One exception, as the first in this series of resources noted (in Section 5), is the (English) Government Social Research Unit, which is explicit about the professional competences for research including these ‘delivery skills’:

‘Policy and delivery focus: understands and directs effort to meet the customer’s needs. Works in partnership with other analysts, policy colleagues and wider customers to provide a relevant and high-quality contribution that adds value to government policy decision-making.

Delivering results: plans work activities, reviewing and prioritising as necessary, to achieve high standards and meet deadlines; is proactive and uses initiative when problems arise or progress is slow…’

http://www.gsr.gov.uk/downloads/professional_development/cpd/cpd_handbook.pdf

These guidelines are for managers of externally-commissioned research rather than for contracted researchers conducting research, but they probably give a good idea of what will be expected of the latter as well.

Otherwise, generic systems-support for project planning and management includes planning instruments like critical path analyses (such as Gantt charts), project management software programmes like Microsoft Project, and holistic project management systems like PRINCE2. For those interested in finding out more about the various products and processes, Wikipedia has plenty of description (although some of this is definitely rather geeky), some (fairly rudimentary) discussion, and lots of links to proprietary and open-source software and other systems.

Despite the plethora of off-the-shelf or even customised project management ‘solutions’, it is arguable that the best place to start is with the research specification and project proposal (see Resource 2, Sections 4 and 5). If the proposal has been carefully thought through and clearly written, it will already contain the most crucial components for developing a management strategy for the project, including:

the aim(s) and objectives of the research;
the relevant policy context and concerns;
the main research issues;
an identification of the internal and external risks, and how they will be managed;
the intended outcomes and ‘deliverables’, including any dissemination requirements;
a timeline with ‘milestones’, to which can be added more detail, and which can be dropped into project software if necessary;
detailed staffing arrangements – even if these were not required by the specification they will have been necessary to calculate accurate costings.

Using the proposal document as the basis, a project plan should be drawn up; whatever format is chosen or required, this should show as a basic minimum:

the research objectives – if necessary, for each phase of the research;
the main research activities for each objective (for example, desk research, instrument development, fieldwork, data recording, data analysis, report writing, conference preparation) and their respective timelines;
the main ‘milestones’ (for example, steering committee meetings, end of school terms if relevant, survey closure date, interim and final deadlines for reporting);
the main outputs, outcomes and ‘deliverables’ (for example, published report, guidance materials, video, conference/seminar, press release).

For all relevant aspects (for example, fieldwork, data recording, publication) do consult, and take account of, the advice given in the ethical guidelines and codes of conduct referred to in the first part of this resource.

For a very thorough approach to planning and decision-making, read Chapter 3 in Cohen, Manion and Morrison (op.cit.) on research design and planning which, amongst other useful discussion, information and instruments, provides a detailed planning matrix. The authors say:

‘If the reader is left feeling… that the task of research is complex, then that is an important message, for rigour and thoughtful, thorough planning are necessary if the research is to be worthwhile and effective.’

It is crucial to be thinking at the planning stage about ‘dissemination’ and ‘impact’ – these are dealt with separately in Resource 4, but in reality need to be built in as project management challenges from the outset, not only in terms of decisions about reporting formats and timelines, but also with regard to intended audience(s) and possible modes of communication other than written reports, books or articles.

Another issue which is often neglected in the planning stage of projects is how an element of systematic capacity-building for junior or early career researchers can be built into the way work is allocated and managed. Capacity-building is a major priority in educational research, as in all the social sciences, if only for demographic reasons (in the late 2000s, 70 per cent of staff in university departments of education were aged over 45) – and, being in the collective interest, it needs to be seen and treated as a collective responsibility. Good project planning and management will ensure that junior and early career researchers are given systematic on the job training and support for their roles on the project, and will take account of their professional development and career progression needs at all stages of the project. For a discussion of some key issues in capacity-building, see Rees et al. 2007, and for a summary of the evaluation of TLRP capacity-building work, see the TLRP report ‘Mapping the Ripples’ (Fowler and Procter 2008). See also The 2008 BERA Charter for Research Staff: promoting quality conditions for conducting quality research (2008) http://www.bera.ac.uk/files/2009/03/bera-charter.pdf

Operational management of research: project set-up

Once the contract is agreed and signed (see Section 8 of the second Resource), there are a few decisions that need to be made as soon as possible. One is convening a suitable steering committee or advisory board – the difference between these is not hard and fast, but usually revolves around the degree of direction over the project the members are expected to exert, whether the researchers are members themselves or are required to report to members, and so forth. It is normal, and good, practice to invite a (limited) number of people beyond the client’s and research teams – perhaps headteachers or community representatives – who can bring a range of different expertise and perspectives to the project. It is also good practice to set out in writing the terms of reference of the committee/group and to circulate copies of the specification and proposal documents.

The dates of steering committee/advisory board meetings should be arranged to coincide with appropriate points in the lifetime of the project, so that members can give timely feedback on draft instruments and reports.

Any additional formal meetings between the research team and the policy client should also be timetabled for as far in advance as seems reasonable; and agreement should be reached about what kinds of issues merit communication between meetings, and with whom they should be communicated. As a general rule, the more that frequent and informal communication can be established between the principal/senior researcher and the researcher manager, the better the formal meetings will proceed; the research manager needs to feel s/he will be informed well in advance if any difficult issues emerge.

For budgeting purposes, the proposal should have set out the proportions of time/number of days to be worked by staff of different grades; now is the time to agree the staffing arrangements in more detail, setting out exactly who will do what and when, so that any potential clashes of work commitments on other projects can be identified and resolved. Making good and workable administrative arrangements can be difficult, and it is important to involve and inform administrators as early as possible. Of course, contingencies always need to be allowed for, especially if there is a programme of intense fieldwork which can be subject to change at any moment.

Also at the start of the project, assuming that the pre-contract negotiations have been successfully concluded (see Resource 2, Section 8), it will be well worth revisiting the risks section of the proposal – which should have been written to anticipate as realistically as possible as many of the difficulties as can be anticipated, not just to comply with the ITT. Nonetheless, it would be entirely understandable if those risks had been couched in somewhat hypothetical terms – and in any case social research tends to be characterised by a high degree of complexity and changeability. So, whether you are a research manager or a contracted researcher, you may find it useful at this stage to re-think the risks (such as a low survey response rate, likelihood of staff turnover) in terms of what steps you will actually need to take given the greater knowledge you now have about the project and its context.

Operational management of research: managing ‘scope creep’

Even with good risk identification in place, there are some risks in commissioned research, especially for government and other policy clients that are hard to anticipate but need to be managed if and when they occur. Most of these can be summarised as ‘scope creep’. ‘Scope creep’ is a phrase used to describe uncontrolled changes over time to a project’s aims, direction, scale and/or timescale and, more specifically, the gradual unchecked expansion of the project’s objectives. This can result in difficulties in the relationship between contractor and client, missed deadlines and/or budget overrun. ‘Scope creep’ is sometimes attributed to a failure properly to define the boundaries of the project at the outset and in writing; but experience of research projects suggests that it can happen as a result of one or more of the following as well or instead:

change of senior research staff responsible for directing the project, especially in a project that stretches over several years;
change of staff responsible for managing the project on the client side – even more common, especially if organisational HR policies actively encourage staff movement;
one or more non-client members of the project steering committee/advisory board exerting undue influence and/or failing to understand the project’s objectives;
unforeseen circumstances or events in the external environment that impact on the research and mean that the timescale, say, or number of case studies, must be extended;
unforeseen circumstances or events in the policy environment, such as a substantive change of policy direction which leads to the clients wishing to investigate questions other than, or additional to, the original issues;
an initial success, such as unexpectedly positive preliminary/interim findings, which leads to the clients (and perhaps the researchers too) wishing to expand the scale of the project;
conversely, an initial setback, such as early negative or null findings, which may also lead to pressure to extend the project in some way;
a realisation that the findings have extensive implications for a range of audiences not envisaged at the specification/proposal stage, and a consequent wish to extend/expand dissemination activities.

Again, clear, detailed specification, proposal and contract documentation are a good first line of defence; these will make it easier for any major modification in the objectives, timescale and/or budget for the research to be discussed and agreed, and then encapsulated in an extension or variation to contract – a kind of codicil which summarises the changes made and is appended to the original main contract.

Operational management of research: data handling

See Section 3 above for guidance on the requirements about collecting, storing and reporting research data. The MRS Code of Conduct also provides detailed guidance about the handling of research records, which is contained in clauses 20 – 22 of the appendix, ‘ICC/ESOMAR Code of Marketing and Social Research Practice’.

Operational management of research: ‘stakeholder’ relationships

Much is rightly written about the importance of good design, rigorous methods and ethical practice in the successful conduct of research; of equal importance, though less frequently discussed, is the establishing and nurturing of good relationships not only with the client’s representatives and the research participants, but also with institutional administrators, sub-contractors/suppliers, research partners in other institutions and others with a direct interest in the research (‘stakeholders’, in the current shorthand). This might seem mere common sense and certainly belongs to the good housekeeping, rather than the rocket technology, of research projects. Nonetheless, as many researchers and research managers can attest, discourteous, neglectful or otherwise clumsily-handled relationships can have a damaging effect on the progress and outcomes of the research. Conversely, good relationships can help to ensure that the findings of the research ‘travel’ and that its outcomes are influential with a wide group of people (see also Resource 4).

It is difficult not to sound patronising or simply foolish when trying to set down rules for relationships, but the following checklist of actions (which can be done in one’s head rather than as a formal paper exercise) may be helpful in thinking about how to massage the vulnerable spots in project relations:

identify who the project stakeholder groups are, and what kind of a ‘stake’ they have: for example, executive (e.g. client), participant (e.g. survey respondent), advisory (e.g. advisory board), dependant (e.g. team administrators, sub-contracted coding agency), receptive (e.g. schools interested to hear about the findings);
acknowledge their needs, concerns, wishes, authority, expertise (this does not mean accepting that all stakeholder needs and wishes are of equal value/salience, or can/should be fulfilled – consideration of ethical principles and obligations will be a helpful guide here in addition to the project contract);
identify where the main differences of stakeholder perspective and/or principle might lie, and what kinds of (possibly conflicting) messages might consequently be conveyed to the research team at different times, including to individual researchers during fieldwork;
identify where the main interfaces and interdependencies lie, particularly if these have contractual implications (such as late delivery of materials by a sub-contractor or timetable slippage on the part of a research partner), and add these to your risk management;
stay alert to the contributions which, even within tight timescales, collaborative relationships – particularly within the research team and with research partners, but also with the research manager and advisory board members – can make to the process of knowledge creation and insight;
on the basis of all the above, openly discuss and manage the expectations of different stakeholder groups early in the project; and you will need to revisit this discussion as the project nears completion and publication so that the reporting process does not get hijacked by hidden agendas;
develop and sustain channels of communication (e.g. through a project newsletter) and opportunities for engagement (e.g. a dedicated and possibly password-protected website);
show appreciation for stakeholders’ contributions – letters of thanks to participants/respondents, acknowledgements to steering committee/advisory board members in published reports, for example, take very little time but demonstrate that researchers have understood their indebtedness to others’ voluntary efforts;
be polite at all times;
be honest.

The way research managers in policy organisations construct and enact their roles of mediation and brokerage is an important element in the successful management of stakeholder interests and expectations (see, for example, Saunders 2007) – for them, as indeed for researchers, greater recognition, and better professional training and development, of the interpersonal skills involved in mediation and negotiation would be helpful.

Operational management of research: quality assurance

Finally in this resource it may be as well to include a few brief words about quality assurance, notwithstanding the fact that for some researchers the term is objectionable. Like many elements in organisational and project management, ‘quality assurance’ and ‘quality control’ originated in industrial mass production procedures, particularly weapons manufacture; they were later developed as more abstract principles and processes applicable to any business or organisational activity. There are international standards, and accompanying certification, for organisational quality management, such as UK Standard BS 5750 or ISO 9000 (see: http://www.iso.org/iso/home.htm)

In research project management, the term is more often used in a general sense to mean internal systems and processes of goal-setting, monitoring and review (although some research organisations are also formally accredited by ISO). The frameworks and competences on various pages of the GSRU site constitute a good example of this kind of systematic approach to quality management: http://www.gsr.gov.uk/about/gsr_governance/gov_gsru.asp

Even more important for the quality of research projects are these kinds of principles (not always fully realised in practice):

quality assurance should be seen as a shared responsibility, between the client/commissioner , the research team and the research institution – and here again the client’s research manager has the job of ‘holding the frame’ in terms of mediating these relationships;
the conduct of a project should be supported and guided (not just monitored) by the research institution as a whole, and the institution’s financial, administrative and legal systems should serve to expedite rather than hinder the research;
the research team should feel they have the full support and guidance of a designated senior experienced researcher within their institution who can give clear and expert direction to the research, handle any sensitive issues that have been ‘escalated’, and, if necessary, bear responsibility on behalf of the organisation for any major difficulties the project encounters particularly in relation to the contract and publication.

An end-of-project review is sometimes an institutional requirement and in any case is always advisable. It should be conducted as a meeting of all staff involved in the project, with a view to learning lessons rather than making judgements. The topics a review might cover include:

research specification, proposal and project planning;
project preparation and set-up, including staffing;
any major issues in the data collection (deskwork, fieldwork);
relationships with participants/respondents;
relationships with client representatives and advisory board/steering committee;
relationships with administrative team and other internal support services;
issues in the analysis, interpretation, inferences and implications;
issues in report writing;
reporting to client;
publication and dissemination.

TASK A

You are a research manager in a national education agency and are responsible for managing the contract of an in-depth qualitative study on teaching assistants and support staff. The research will inform your advice to Government on establishing professional standards for such people. You are in the process of putting together an advisory board for the project – how many and what kind of people would you want on the board? Write the draft terms of reference for them to agree at their first meeting. Now imagine you are the principal researcher conducting the project – would your nominees be different?

TASK B
You are a research manager in a large teachers’ union and you have responsibility for managing the contract of a large-scale survey of teachers’ views on pupil assessment – through which your policy colleagues are wanting to influence government strategy, while the media people are hoping to get some much-needed coverage. The survey has been in the field for almost the allotted length of time but response rates have been so slow and low that you have major concerns about the credibility of the findings. Despite your having asked for an urgent update, no-one on the research team is answering your calls or e-mails. Draw up a plan of action, with options based on different scenarios.

TASK C
Thinking about a research project with which you are reasonably familiar, draw up a list of the main ‘stakeholder’ groups who you imagine to have a direct or indirect interest in the research. Choose one group, and consider in detail the kinds of expectations – interests, anxieties, hopes – they might be entertaining in relation to the conduct and/or findings of the research. Then draw up a list of actions, with appropriate texts/explanations, you would advise the research team to take for managing these expectations.

TASK D

Again thinking about a research project with which you are familiar (as a researcher or research manager), imagine you have conducted an end-of-project review: pull out the main lessons you would wish to convey to (i) team members, (ii) institutional managers, (iii) client representatives, (iv) sub-contractors and/or research partners, to improve the way the project was planned and handled.

To comment on any aspect of this resource, please e-mail lesley@lesleysaunders.org.uk