Research bureaucracy in the United Kingdom

Editor—Transparent ethical scrutiny should come sufficiently early in the “life” of a research project that the design can incorporate the management of any risks to the public. A feeding frenzy for funding opportunities can make it difficult to organise such early scrutiny. The BMJ shows examples of a new problem: the paralysis of research by bureaucracy associated with ethics committees.¹ Even committee members seem helplessly entangled in the new procedures.² Hopefully, your readers will help to loose the Gordian knot created by these central “COREC” procedures.

However, research governance goes far beyond the inefficiency of a particular committee and is unfairly caricatured by the “face” published here.³ At the heart of governance is accountability.⁴ The scientific community owes this accountability to the patients and wider public who support research activities. Without their trust and goodwill, academic medical research would die—or else, possibly, degenerate into the coercive horror of the Nazi doctors' “research” detailed at Nuremberg. At all stages of planning, implementing, and reporting research we have a duty to consider the safety and dignity of the participants, the relevance of research findings to clinical and public health improvements, and our openness to critical reflection and refinement of our work.

Learning to improve our governance of research is a crucial step to better research and wiser researchers. Professional bodies have an important role in promoting learning in a real context.⁵ What is the BMA doing to develop good governance?