Ethics and inclusive research

Developing inclusive and accessible ethics processes that enable meaningful consent and participation has been an important part of I'm Me.

Inclusive research involves people with learning disabilities in research about their lives. For I'm Me this included helping develop research questions, conducting interviews, analysing data and most importantly of all creating artistic outputs for the I'm Me Festival.

Research ethics are supposed to make sure that people know what they are agreeing to when they take part in research and to avoid hurting people. However, they can often be complicated, and inaccessible. Sometimes they can exclude people, especially people with learning disabilities and autism from taking part in research. For I'm Me we worked collaboratively with learning disabled and autistic artists to develop accessible and inclusive ethics processes.

The ethics processes were focused around the idea that people have rights in research, including:

1. You have the right to have your say
2. You have the right to support
3. You have the right to feel safe and say no
4. You have the right to privacy
5. You have the right for it to feel worthwhile

These rights in research were communicated in multiple ways, including video, illustrations and interactive scenarios.

Download our support pack or watch our video for more information:

• Rights in Research support pack (PDF, 0.8MB)