Ethical principles for research within conflict

In South Sudan, there’s no ethical review process for research – but a huge amount of research gets done, especially by South Sudanese researchers working for international humanitarian and development organisations, often under pressure and in really difficult and dangerous conditions. What can researchers and academics in South Sudan and around the world do to make sure that this work is ethical, fair, and high quality? In this blog Nicki Kindersley reflects on a recent project that brought together South Sudanese researchers and academics to set out an ethical statement about standards for the field.

Countries with big humanitarian and development industries often have big research industries that underpin their work. South Sudan is a great example: since the huge aid projects of the 1990s Sudanese civil war, South Sudan’s research industry has grown to match massive state-building and humanitarian industries. Given conflicts and new civil wars since its independence in 2011, research work is mostly done by South Sudanese contracted researchers, often under huge time pressures, in situations of real danger, working on projects designed and driven by aid organisations and UN agencies often working from outside the country.

South Sudan’s five public universities are also stretched to the limit: with large student numbers and repeated shut-downs during the 2013-2018 civil war, in the last few years universities have only been able to pay a few months’ salary each year to their lecturers. Many often pick up contract research work for aid agencies to make ends meet. Studying for Masters and PhD programmes often means having to win one of a handful of international scholarships, and leaving South Sudan on a single student visa – hard for women researchers or anyone with a family to support.

But despite all these challenges, the future of the research sector in South Sudan is bright, with exciting new waves of South Sudanese-led research into agricultural innovation, economic trends, gendered labour dynamics and social and cultural history.

I’ve been working with colleagues at the University of Juba and with independent researchers at the Rift Valley Institute for well over a decade now, acting as a research mentor for early career academics with the Women’s Research Network and co-running research projects with colleagues in the Faculty of Education at Juba. Throughout this, we’ve talked (and complained) about dodgy practices in South Sudan’s research sector, which range from sexism and sexual harassment through to unfair pay, no insurance provisions, and repetitive or underinformed questions being asked by aid agencies about how people are coping with conflicts and hunger.

So when Cardiff University’s Impact for All funding came up last year, I put in a bid to create a forum that would bring together some core ethical principles and practical standards for research in South Sudan. With funding from Cardiff, a group of South Sudanese academics, early-career researchers, independent research consultants, research assistants, and professors gathered in Juba in August 2022 to discuss ethical principles and practices. We talked about how the humanitarian and development sector in the new country has inadvertently produced a research industry that is over-researching aid emergencies and neglecting other areas, and which relies on a limited research infrastructure, little training, few career paths and embedded pay, risk, and gender inequalities.

The meeting produced a statement on ethical research in South Sudan, which you can read here. The statement sets out – for the first time in the new country – clear guidance for international and national researchers and funding institutions to follow to try to produce more ethical research. It argues for South Sudanese theory and methods to move to the heart of research, and sets out some possible steps for better transparency, fair pay and safety provisions, investments in research infrastructure and building career paths. The statement is immensely useful for me – as a white British researcher – for guidance on transparent budget processes and contracting, and for highlighting the importance of building in time for slower research design processes that pay close attention to linguistic complexity and accountability to research participants. We hope agencies and development organisations find this a useful initial guide while the national ethical review process is still in development.

During the meeting, we produced two short podcasts. The first podcast brings together reflections from each South Sudanese researcher and academic at the meeting, about their personal priorities for more ethical research. The second podcast is a live discussion among the women participants of the meeting – half of the participants, from across career points and pathways – about the specific experiences of women working in the South Sudan research industry. This very personal and honest (and anonymous!) podcast highlights not just pervasive sexual harassment but the higher fieldwork risks and stereotyped roles that women face in South Sudan, at all levels.

We hope that this small project will have some big outcomes. For the first time for this new country, we have set out some clear guidance for international and national researchers and funding institutions to try to follow, and to help them understand how they can help set clear ethical standards for better, richer research. We’ve also highlighted women researchers’ voices (and frustrations, and ideas) in this field. And we hope that we are building mutuality and support among this small but brilliant research community, laying some foundations for the future.