Towards some answers to the questions of ethics in collaborative research

The questions of ethics in collaborative research derive fundamentally from the collaborating researchers’ respective worldviews and value systems. Developing appropriate and effective answers to those questions depends partly on the researchers’ willingness and capacity to make explicit and hold up for examination otherwise unconscious and hence uncontested aspects of their attitudes and values – no easy task. As one way of addressing these questions, this chapter records the authors’ exploration of this crucial yet risky process by presenting and critiquing their shared engagement with completing three challenging statements: “To me, good research is:”; “My research benefits:”; and “Ethical collaborative research involves:”. The authors elaborate the conceptual resources, methodological assumptions and life experiences that each brings to responding to these statements; in addition, by means of a focused conversation, they articulate some of the synergies uniting their outlooks as well as the potential areas of disagreement and dissent. The chapter concludes by presenting selected aspects of the authors’ ethical stance regarding collaborative research and possible implications of that stance for the broader research team’s operations and sustainability.