TEMPO commits to ethical work within our universities and the communities of practice (French Polynesia and México) we visit to conduct research.
Social-ecological systems research necessarily depends on learning from and interacting with people and nature, which at its best can be transformative and emancipatory and at its worst can be extractive and damaging.
As researchers of social-ecological systems, we acknowledge the historic and continued prominence of helicopter science as defined below:
Helicopter science occurs when researchers from high-income settings (or who are otherwise privileged) conduct studies in lower-income settings or with historically marginalized groups, with little or no involvement from those communities or local researchers in the research's conceptualization, design, conduct, or publication.
Do No Harm
We commit to Do No Harm with our research first and foremost. We pledge to think through the possible ways that our research might cause harm to the dignity or well-being of communities where we conduct research or that may be affected by our research. Do No Harm supersedes the goal of seeking new knowledge; we may need to forego specific research activities in order to Do No Harm. We equally consider potential unintended consequences and long-term impacts on individuals, communities, and the environment.
Transparency
We commit to transparency regarding TEMPO’s purpose, methods, outcomes, and sponsors. In this, we will disclose all research interests and benefits to participants. We considered transparency in all initial decisions in the project proposal and continue to commit to transparency in participation, engagement, and feedback throughout the project.
Our commitment to transparency also requires us to consider the potential impact of our communication choices. We commit to open and reciprocal science where appropriate (e.g. while not violating confidentiality of personal data from our research partners and participants). We explicitly commit to sharing data, results, and communication with all partners, participants, and their community as appropriate. For many of our partners, raw data and academic papers are insufficient in achieving transparency of our work. We will create meaningful, comprehensible communication to ensure transparency for our various audiences including fishing cooperatives, non-profit organizations working in sustainable fishing, undergraduate and graduate students, National Science Foundation staff, and the people of the United States of America who fund our work.
Ethical Relationships
We commit to a responsibility to maintain respectful relationships within the TEMPO team and in our relationships representing TEMPO outside of our team. Individually, we commit to conduct ourselves in ways that promote a supportive, happy, inclusive, and ethical workplace while working on TEMPO-related work. We work to recognize and eliminate any exclusionary practices within our extended research team. If we see evidence of research misconduct, we commit to report it to the appropriate authorities. We commit to notice defensiveness in ourselves when we are informed that we may be involved in research misconduct of any kind, and to work to fix it.
Informed Consent + Necessary Permissions
We commit to receiving consent that is both voluntary and informed before conducting any research with human subjects. Informed consent includes sharing our goals, methods, funding, expected outcomes, and anticipated impacts with participants, as well as any risk of harm, before collecting any human subjects data, as governed by UCSB’s Human Subjects Committee which serves as UCSB’s Institutional Review Board (IRB). Beyond individual consent, we recognize that consent from the chosen representatives of organized groups including fishing cooperatives may be appropriate in our research settings.
We practice clear expectations around anonymity/confidentiality, credit, and any impacts of participation. We must receive the necessary permission to interact with biological resources and traditional knowledge within research sites. Last, we offer all participants a straightforward procedure for feedback and complaints about research methods or personnel.
If you are one of our research participants and would like to file feedback or complaints, please do not hesitate to reach out to UCSB’s Human Subjects Committee by contacting them directly:
Email: hsc@research.ucsb.edu
Telephone: 805-893-3807 or 805-893-4290
Mailing Information:
Human Subjects Coordinator
Office of Research, 3227 Cheadle Hall
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-2050
Protect and Preserve Records
We take responsibility for our data's integrity, preservation, and protection. This may include a plan for long-term storage of our data. This responsibility requires us to ensure that raw data and collected materials will not be used for unauthorized ends. We disclose how other parties may transform data or may compromise confidentiality. We commit to methods that ensure the confidentiality and security of field notes, recordings, and other primary data.
Ethical Conflicts
When conflicts between ethical standards or expectations arise, we must make our ethical obligations explicit. In this, we prioritize obligations to research participants and the obligation to do no harm. We consider potential ethical conflicts among participants, students, professional colleagues, employers, and funders.
Authorship and Contribution
We commit to cite relevant local and regional research to improve the quality of their citations.
We appropriately acknowledge all contributions to their research, writing, and other related activities and compensate contributors justly for any assistance they provide.
Contributors who do not meet all criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgements section.
It might be necessary to seek out local contributors when researchers use publicly available or secondary data they were not involved in gathering to add important cultural context or an appreciation of local impacts.
Consortia authorship: A collective of authors can be listed as a consortium. Individual authors can be listed in the primary author list and as consortium members if necessary. All authors within a consortium must be listed at the end of the paper.
Mentorship
Faculty and peer mentors should model inclusive behavior, and proactively show support for diverse and marginalized groups. Mentors should encourage transparency, active bystanding, foster communication, and offer direction to university support services. Mentors will be change agents who facilitate formation of allies.