摘要：Globally, ethics guidelines for conducting research involving human subjects have been informed by practices and procedures developed for, and with reference to, medical research. 1,2 This indication is clear from international guidelines on research ethics practices, including the Belmont Report 3 and the Declaration of Helsinki 4 . Historically, developments of guidelines in research ethics, and procedures for ethics review, have often been reactive responses to critical events (i.e. ethics breaches) in medical research practice. The context for research ethics and clinical practice changes continually owing to developments in technology and medical procedures including genetics and robotics. Thus, ethics guidelines for research involving human subjects often lag behind developments in technology and medical science. Despite such guidelines, there are limitations as to the extent to which they can be applied to research that involves human subjects but in non-medical and non-therapeutic settings (here termed human participants). In this context, the term non-medical refers to the application of social science and humanities methodologies and instruments relating to human participants outside of medical, clinical or therapeutic settings. This type of research includes data collection using qualitative and interactive methods, such as interviews, questionnaires, workshops, focus groups and ethnographic observations.
关键词：ethical research practice;social science;humanities;research participants;researcher
