Strain at a gnat and swallow a camel? Ethical review of humanities and social sciences fit for purpose.

The Swedish Ethical Review Act and its application have been much criticised - not least from researchers in the humanities and social sciences (including jurisprudence). But no systematic investigation has yet been made of the system. This project aims to address this crucial knowledge gap.

Focusing on whether the system is fit for purpose in the humanities and social sciences, three sub-questions will be addressed:What requirements does the Swedish Ethical Review Act place on such research, and what values ​​does the current ethical review system aim to safeguard?What are the benefits and costs of the current system?Is it possible, and if so how, to ensure, in a more appropriate way that such research is conducted in an ethically acceptable manner?To explore these issues, the law and its application will be examined both legally and ethically.

Also, Swedish researchers’ experiences of the system´s strengths and weaknesses will be studied with the help of focus groups.Importantly, the project will analyze alternative approaches that might be better suited to ensure that research in these areas is conducted in an ethically acceptable manner.

The results will consequently be directly relevant to the Swedish system, but also relevant to similar ethics review systems, and hence be of international relevance.The project will combine methods from jurisprudence (interpretation of legal sources and comparative law), those of analytical philosophy, and empirical qualitative methods.