The importance of complaints and feedback procedures for collaborative research in resource-poor settings Complaints procedures play an important role in research, helping to ensure that experience and practice are aligned with expectations.

An effective complaints procedure can give voice to those who participate in research, offering a channel for raising concerns that might otherwise remain unheard, both during and after a study.

Complaints procedures can contribute to the safeguarding of participants in an ongoing manner, beyond the ethical approval process; they offer a mechanism for correcting mistakes and for protecting people, animals and the environment from abuse and mistreatment.

Significantly, complaints mechanisms offer a means of revealing lapses and failures in ethical conduct, thereby providing opportunities for enhancing ethical compliance in research.

The TRUST project has developed the routine use of accessible complaints procedures in research forms part of the overarching strategy for reducing ethics dumping.   Read more