The San People’s Code of Research Ethics

Trust thought for today - the importance of respect and inclusion.

The San People’s Research Ethics Framework.

I love this. "The San peoples, the 'first' or indigenous peoples of southern Africa have been the object of much academic research over centuries. In recent years, San leaders have become increasingly convinced that most academic research on their communities has been neither requested, nor useful, nor protected in any meaningful way. In many cases dissatisfaction, if not actual harm, has been the result"

So in 2017 they devised and published The San Code of Research Ethics, which requires all researchers wishing to engage with San communities to commit to four central values - fairness, respect, care and honesty - as well as to comply with a process of community approval.

So if you don't commit to that, you don't get to research or consult them. Fantastic!

It is an empowering concept which could be applied in lots of areas - patients with diseases researchers want to investigate, NGOs who constantly have to jump thru consultation hoops to have their input ignored. It could catch on!

We discussed it at the Mozilla Festival session this afternoon run by the wonderful folks at the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law Stichting 'Harnessing the civic voice in AI Human Rights Impact Assessment' and think that sort of empowering framing might be useful for their working group I am also involved in developing a meaningful framework for involvement.

Thanks very much Piers Millett for drawing it to my attention and for your respectful and thoughtful consultation approach underway with the WHO Human Genome Editing working group.