A collaborative ethics review provides a practical way for independent and applied teams to document and strengthen ethical judgement in research and evaluation. This page outlines an approach designed for applied, collaborative, and evolving work, particularly where projects sit outside formal institutional ethics systems.
Many applied research and evaluation projects operate outside university ethics systems. Independent researchers, consultancies, cross-sector partnerships, and community-based initiatives may not have access to university review processes.
In these settings, ethical responsibility remains, but the mechanisms for supporting and documenting it are less clearly defined. Funders, partners, communities, and publishers increasingly expect clear documentation of how ethical judgement has been exercised. The question is not whether ethics applies, but how it is supported, made visible, and carried through the life of the work.
The approach outlined below provides a structured pathway for collaborative peer review, with links to downloadable ethics protocols that support the process.
A collaborative approach to ethics review
The collaborative peer review model described on this site offers a practical pathway for independent and applied teams. In practice, the process works as follows:
- The team completes a draft ethics protocol in advance, working through questions covering consent, participant wellbeing, data use, cultural safety, power, and other considerations relevant to their project.
- The draft is circulated to one or two experienced reviewers ahead of a facilitated session, usually around 60–90 minutes, where reviewers and team members work carefully through the questions together.
- The session is structured as a collegial conversation, not an audit. Reviewers ask questions, surface assumptions, and support the team in thinking through ethical considerations in context.
- Following the discussion, the protocol is revised to reflect agreed safeguards and any remaining differences of view.
- The revised protocol is signed by the applicant(s) and reviewer(s) and retained as a formal record, and used as a reference point for ongoing reflection as the work unfolds.
Two downloadable protocols are available to support this process, one for social research and one for evaluation. Both include guidance on facilitating the peer review discussion.
What makes this approach distinctive
This model differs from a simple checklist or compliance exercise in three important ways.
Responsibility architecture is explicit
Ethical responsibility remains with the project team throughout. Peer reviewers support reflection and strengthen shared understanding, but do not assume regulatory authority or transfer liability. The signed protocol records that a structured, independent review took place, not that responsibility has shifted.
Review is dialogic and facilitated
The process centres on structured conversation rather than written exchange. Experienced reviewers prompt clarification, surface risks, and help the team think through how ethical principles play out in their specific context. This is where the approach differs most from forms-based review: ethics is worked through together, in real time, by people who understand the work.
The signed protocol records reasoning, not regulatory approval
It documents ethical considerations and agreed safeguards, making judgement visible and defensible without claiming institutional authority. It can be cited in funding applications, partnership agreements, or publications as evidence of ethical due process.
What this approach delivers
A distinctive strength of this model is that it brings the whole team into the conversation. Rather than one person drafting responses and others signing off at a distance, everyone is in the room, thinking together, hearing each other’s perspectives, and developing a shared understanding of the ethical commitments they are making. People come away not just knowing what was agreed, but understanding why, and having contributed to shaping it.
That shared engagement tends to stick. It seeds better working habits, builds a common language for talking about ethical questions as they arise, and makes it more likely that the protocol remains a living reference point rather than a document filed and forgotten. Teams from different disciplines, a social researcher and a biophysical scientist for instance, often find in these conversations that their different perspectives strengthen rather than complicate the ethical design of the work.
The real payoff is not a signed form but a project that runs well, one where participants are engaged safely and constructively, relationships are built on trust, and the team knows how to keep returning to these questions across the longer life of the work.
An open and adaptable framework
The ethics protocols are freely available for download and adaptation from the Human ethics protocols page. They can be used for structured self-reflection or as the basis for a facilitated peer review session. Peer review may be conducted on a reciprocal, pro bono, or modestly paid basis, depending on context.
This approach sits within a broader commitment to ethical practice across the Learning for Sustainability site. The Human ethics hub page introduces the framing that underpins this work, emphasising ethical judgement in applied and collaborative contexts. The Human ethics resources page curates external frameworks and readings. For a reflective discussion of how ethical questions arise in practice, see the blog posts Strengthening ethics in applied and collaborative work and Working with care: Supporting ethics in research and evaluation.
If you would like to explore how this approach might fit your organisational setting, feel free to get in touch.
[* Photo by Alex P via Pexels]