Würzburg as a milestone on the way to a research ethics code for social work
Recognize - Weigh - Decide. Research Ethics in Social Work. Under this motto, the Faculty of Applied Social Sciences together with the German Society for Social Work (DGSA) invited to a symposium on research ethics in Würzburg. This conference is a milestone for the development of a research ethics code for social work in Germany. Although there is already a research ethics commission of the German Society for Social Work, initial principles have already been laid down in a key issues paper, but the next step is the adoption of a research ethics code. The symposium was organised in order to conduct the necessary discourse. The aim was to identify areas of ethical tension in research practice and to reflect on standards. The Ethics Section under the leadership of Theresia Wintergerst and the Research Section under the leadership of Ursula Unterkofler prepared the conference with the participation of the DGSA Executive Committee and members of the Research Ethics Commission. Researchers from all over Germany responded to the call for papers and analysed the experiences from their projects. International guests also accepted the invitation. Wintergerst outlined the ethical demands of the researchers in terms of the right to be researched and the right to be properly researched.
The conference provided insights into current areas of conflict. In particular, the "summer of migration" in 2015 resulted in increased research in the field of migration. How scientific categorisation alone can reinforce stereotypes was highlighted, as were situations in which qualitative group research settings led to racist insults between researchers, which raised the question of when the researcher's role must be abandoned.
How do human rights conventions affect research ethics? These questions were also concretized: What can informed consent mean in the context of cognitive impairment? Does the Convention on the Rights of the Child strengthen the rights of children to have their say in the research process themselves? The participation orientation of social work raised further questions: what suitable forms of participation can exist in research processes and what framework conditions do they need?
At the fireside chat in the evening, Prof. Dr. Hella von Unger (LMU Munich) referred to the unpredictability of research processes, which even commissions could not always foresee. Prof. Dr. Kim Strom-Gottfried gave insights into the practice of research ethics commissions in the United States. Strom-Gottfried criticized that ethics commissions in the USA were increasingly focusing on the legal safeguarding of institutions instead of actually strengthening the process of informed consent. In fact, it is less a matter of collecting signatures under long and complicated documents that could hardly be overlooked by the researchers than of an ethically sensitive process of respecting the rights of research participants.
Further ethical research questions, which were not dealt with in depth in the panels, were unfolded by the participants in a world café. In each panel, observers analysed the process and evaluated it at the end with regard to suggestions for a future research ethics code for social work. The conference enabled a differentiated examination of research ethics in social work. The consensus was high: Strengthening research in social work requires a research ethic that not only aims to provide legal security for institutions, but also to meet the ethical demands of all those involved in research. The great popularity of the conference showed the importance of the forum.
