WATCH: “Our ‘lab’ is dynamic…”
03 Dec 2025
“Beyond the Ethics Board looks at research in nuanced, complex settings,” says Birte Vogel, who aims to empower her social science and humanities colleagues in a Research Culture and Environment funded project.
Dr Birte Vogel introduces her third-year students to research ethics by having them create their own project – and taking it to India.
“I can see them looking at me in the classroom, not really knowing why I complicate the idea of ethical decision making so much; or why positionality matters,” she explains. “But in India, a lightbulb goes on – they can see it.”
Birte, a Senior Lecturer in Humanitarianism, Peace and Conflict Studies at our Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute, has been at Manchester since 2014. Her research has shown her first-hand how important community and reflection is when it comes to learning skills in a complex, nuanced setting.
Now she has developed that knowledge, working with academics in Colombia, the Balkans and Nepal, to address responsible research practice needs here at Manchester.
“The regulatory frameworks were created with biomedical and medical sciences in mind and address big issues, such as data protection and informed consent,” she says.
“But our research is subject to nuance and complexity, so we need to take an even more careful approach to our ethical conduct, especially in the field.”
Beyond the Ethics Board – one of seven projects funded by University’s Enhancing Research Culture Fund, led by Birte, Professor Larissa Fast, Dr Nimesh Dhungana and Professor Bertrand Taithe – will not add to the ethics compliance load. It will simply ensure that there’s discipline-appropriate training and a space for qualitative researchers to reflect together and learn best practices on dealing with ethical dilemmas.
Here Birte explains how researchers can empower each other in a dynamic lab:
Get involved
Qualitative researchers and postdocs:
- Sign up for focus groups to share your experience and find out how to improve responsible research practice here at Manchester. Sessions in December 2025 and January 2026, or you can suggest other dates and times at Focus Group Discussion (FGD) on Research Ethics Process
- Sign up for workshops, co-run with the team’s international partners from their British Academy project. They cover Knowledge production and the ethics of international collaboration; Ethics of data sharing; and Ethics of researching with communities under difficult circumstances: Beyond the Ethics Board: Strengthening continued ethical practice in qualitative research
You can also find out more about the team’s project with the British Academy at: Re-ordering ethics and knowledge production in conflict and disaster-affected contexts
Read Birte, Nimesh and Larissa’s paper at: Caught in the middle: Local researchers’ experience of mundane ethical harms in crisis settings
Or pick up Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, co-edited by Birte and containing more than 30 personal experiences from a variety of researchers – “the stuff we usually cut out of articles,” says Birte – from our University Library.
Further information
This project was one of seven funded following the launch of the University’s Research Culture and Environment framework.
The University’s research culture and environment is defined as the way that we collaborate, communicate, and interact with each other; the behaviours, attitudes, and values that shape how our research is developed, conducted, and used; and the mechanisms by which we support research and recognise and reward that work. The funded projects align to one of the University’s four research culture themes:
- Supporting diverse and rewarding careers;
- Enabling open and impactful research;
- Upholding the highest levels of responsible and ethical research;
- Building collaboration and interdisciplinarity.
Associate Vice-President for Research, Professor Melissa Westwood said: “The applications received in response to this call showed a real breadth and diversity of ideas to help shape our research culture and demonstrated the passion and innovation of colleagues across our University.
“The seven funded projects address a range of challenges, and we are excited to see the impact they will have in such important areas of our research culture.”
For more information and support, visit: