ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on current guidelines for the regulation of research practices to highlight governance and ethical implications for those commissioning and undertaking community-based research and evaluation. Increasingly, researchers are required by funders, research organizations and legislation to meet standards regarding research governance practices (Shaw et al., 2005; Banks et al., 2013). This shift towards external regulation of research is driven by a desire to ensure research integrity, whereby research is appropriate, transparent and effective, and has led to the development of research guidelines in most developed countries. Historically, research practices have been most strictly regulated in health research (e.g. clinical trials). However, research integrity is also of critical importance in research and evaluation of community-based programmes and interventions. As considered in detail in Chapter 2 of this text, community-based research and evaluation aims to respond to the needs of communities and lead to improved services and policies, and is driven by a respect for individuals in the community where community stakeholders are viewed as equal partners in the research process. Questionable research practice, or even research misconduct, in the form of insensitivity and/or incompetence on the part of the researcher may have unintended negative consequences for community stakeholders (Bamberger et al., 2012) and mechanisms for minimizing such practices must be considered early by those commissioning and conducting community-based research and evaluation.
