Navigating Institutional Research Ethics and Access Permissions: A Case Study of Four South African Universities

• Published in: African Journal of Development Studies 2024-09, Vol.14 (3), p.33-53
• Main Author: Baleni, Alois S.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Access; Access permission; Application; Bureaucracy; Case studies; Collaborative research; Colleges & universities; Ethical conduct; Ethics committees; Gate keeping; Governance; Institutional and research ethics; Institutionalization; Laws, regulations and rules; Permission; Research ethics
• ISSN: 2634-3630; 2634-3649
• DOI: 10.31920/2634-3649/2024/v14n3a2

The African continent has diverse development opportunities, and scientific inquiry remains a key imperative for the development agenda. Similarly, research ethics and their component of institutional access permissions are central to the regulation and governance of the ethical conduct of African researchers or researchers in Africa. However, the problem is that there is very little ethical clearance policy framework provision for externally commissioned studies coming to university campuses in South Africa. This challenge is exacerbated by the institutionalised and multi-layered bureaucratic systems which delay and limit access. The other additional challenge is that gatekeeping responsibilities are in the offices of various senior executive administrators of universities who are often unavailable to attend to research access permission enquiries due to their primary executive administrative functions outside the ambit of research. The dynamics of the language power and control dominate the ethics application process while there is also limited configuration of processes and procedures of the application processes. In some instances, relevant research ethics committees may take a while to respond to urgent internal ethics application enquiries. The researcher draws from a study of two historically white universities, one historically black university, and one comprehensive (merged) university using a critical discourse analytical approach. This outlines the challenges of navigating the research ethics terrain from an externally commissioned study perspective and highlights the internal institutional dynamics of gatekeeping protocols. The researcher concludes by summarising these challenges and their implications with a recommendation of reconfiguration and reconstitution of the currently institutionalised exclusionary ethics practices to accommodate external researchers and ultimately improve the overall African research agenda.