OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
In 1979 the Belmont Report warned about threat of “undue influence” on the ability of potential research participants to provide voluntary informed consent. The authors defined undue influence as, “an offer of an excessive, unwarranted, inappropriate or improper reward or other overture in order to obtain compliance.” The attention levied on undue influence has had profound and lasting effects on the way that individuals are recruited and compensated for their participation in research. In this paper I will describe the theoretical foundations of undue influence and argue that the concept is fundamentally flawed. Furthermore, I will provide a defense of why ethics review committees (ERCs) and institutional review boards (IRBs) should not consider undue influence in their assessment of research proposals. Lastly, I will argue that a focus on undue influence by ERCs and IRBs raises the real prospect of exploitation and discrimination of potentially vulnerable groups.
