The social and policy contexts of the New Brunswick Declaration on Research Ethics, Integrity, and Governance: a commentary

This paper explores the social and policy implications of the "New Brunswick Declaration on Research Ethics, Integrity, and Governance" developed at the Ethics Rupture Summit in Fredericton, N.B., Canada, October 2012. It discusses the Declaration and the Summit in relation to the usual criticism and analysis of research ethics regimes, and considers reasons why the immense prior literature has had little impact on regulatory bodies. Because the Declaration, like the Illinois White Paper, has quickly achieved considerable attention relative to most other such documents, and because much further deliberation has evolved since the Summit, we offer here a commentary on each of the eight principles contained in the Declaration in the hope of further stimulating discussion and consolidating the progress that now seems underway.