Social research is being stymied by excessive ethical oversight

Assertions but not one bit of evidence. The misconduct of medical researchers and the damage long done to "human subjects"--consider the phrase--is the reason, and the continuing reason for ethical guidelines. Period. Past and present as exceptionally well documented

This debate has been a long time coming. We have had examples of student Master's dissertations disallowed, for example, on the grounds that people being interviewed might become upset, despite mitigations built into the research process. The same research has now, quite correctly, become a PhD in another country. A code of conduct for social science research is now required.

There is a problem with ethical approval for social and educational research, but it isn't entirely driven by medical ethics. In my experience, NHS ethics committees are quite reasonable, perhaps because they deal with such issues frequently. University ethics committees, on the other hand, tend to a more rigid application of what they think are 'rules', without considering the real likelihood of harms. However, if a consent form cannot be understood by the subjects, there is a design problem, and here ethics committees can help. There is also the problem of the use of routinely collected data, which by definition has no ethical consent, but, properly anonymised, is very powerful for resolving some educational and social issues. j.1365-2929.2005.02223.x20220616-1-113ahp1-libre.pdf