Why research ethics should add retrospective review

This article outlines the importance of research teams undertaking retrospective review of ethical experiences encountered in studies conducted in humanitarian contexts. The authors argue that only conducting prospective review of research fails to capture much of what is important in ethics and does not promote careful reflection on the ethical issues involved. The current approach tends to be rules-based and the article argues that research ethics should go beyond this to develop people’s capacity to be sensitive to the relevant moral features of their research, their ethical decision-making skills and their integrity.