Research Methods and Ethics Expertise

Methods Expertise

I have written a range of books on research methods and have been a researcher myself since 1999. This means I have built up a level of expertise that has proved useful in a number of contexts. Here are some examples.

The Children’s Workforce Development Council was set up in 2005 with Government funding to support the implementation of the ‘Every Child Matters’ strategy. In 2007-8 I helped them to set up a research programme including practitioner research, academic research, and future scoping research. This involved conducting a review of online literature on children’s workforce issues, designing a programme of research to address identified gaps in knowledge, drafting invitations to tender for research projects, answering queries from potential tenderers, helping to assess tenders, helping to monitor and support research in progress, and writing a report to capture learning.

In 2021 I advised Nottingham Trent University on ways to research whether their approach to granting student extensions for extenuating circumstances was disadvantaging some groups of students.

In 2022 I redesigned the first year of a ‘3+1’ distance learning professional doctorate for the University of Central Lancashire. This year was intended to teach qualitative research methods in preparation for doctoral study. I gave the course a suitable structure and then planned weekly sessions with readings (including videos, comics and other creative outputs), discussion questions, and suggested further readings. I also set assignments for the students.

From 2022-30 I am serving as research methods and ethics expert on a project led by Dr Aimee Grant, using participatory community-led qualitative longitudinal research to understand Autistic reproductive experiences throughout the life course and improve healthcare services. This project is funded by the Wellcome Trust.

From 2024-2027 I am acting as creative research methods expert for a project led by Professor Chris Dayson to address health inequalities through creative health and community assets.

Ethics Expertise

I have always striven to do my own research as ethically as possible. I wrote a book on research ethics which was published in 2018, and I teach Radical Research Ethics to universities worldwide. Here are some examples of my ethics work:

In 2019 I provided facilitated professional support for a group of staff at Sheffield Hallam University to work on the ethics of insider research in higher education.

In 2019-2020 I worked with Waverley Care, a national charity in Scotland working with people with blood-borne viruses, to set up and run their own research ethics committee.

In 2020 I was trained as an ethics expert for the European Commission. Since then I have sat on panels assessing the ethics issues raised by grant applications, and panels checking the ethical compliance and quality of projects in process. I also act as an independent ethics adviser for EC-funded projects on topics varying from global shipping chains to citizen science, gender and migration to plastic recycling.

In 2023 I was retained by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) to provide ethics mentoring as they set up their own research ethics committee.

In 2024 I was retained by Plymouth Marine Laboratory to provide ethics mentoring as they set up their own research ethics committee.

In 2024 I launched the UK’s first Independent Research Ethics Committee aka IREC.