12.10 The competence of the research staff and research governance
One important exception to the requirement that the research design be good' science appears to be research carried out as part of the researcher's own education or training. Doesstudent research 'have to be judged by standards as
high as those of real 'research? There are different schools of thought here, but in essence it comes down to how the researcher 'student) wishes the research to be considered: is it an educational project, designed to instruct the student in research methods and management? Or is it primarily intended as research, i.e. an attempt to add to collective knowledge? If the latter, then the research standard applies. The project must be assessed as objectively as possible in the light of existing knowledge and standards of research method. If the former, then the project must meet a different, not necessarily a lower, standard. The educational project must be evaluated as a project which aims to teach the student something about research method and management. As such, it must be evaluated in the same way that any educational intervention is ± according to the aims and objectives of the teaching and the capacity this work has for permitting fulfilment of those aims and objectives. To some extent, these overlap with the aims and objectives of research; the best student research is often publishable in its own right. Moreover, at a certain standard, the appropriate educational aim is to produce work which can stand the rigours of objective peer review. This is certainly the case of work produced for masters degrees by research, and for doctoral research. The moral issues involved in educational projects are not, finally, different to those involved in research projects: the subjects must be told of the aims of the research and what it is hoped to achieve. In educational projects, they must be told that this is to help the student learn ± as when a student nurse takes part in ward rounds and clinical care of patients. In research projects, they must be told that this research will aim to add to knowledge. In either case, the patient's consent should be sought 'where possible) and the risks and benefits of the research explained, and so on. What differs between the educational project and the research project is simply the explicit non-clinical aim of the activity over and above its clinical aim, if any. Just as the standard of the design may vary in the research and educational contexts, so too may the standard of competence expected of the principal investigator. However, there are limits. In research projects, there is a clear obligation for the research undertaken to lie within the competence of the inves- tigator 'or investigating team together) to carry out the work. This is clearly true in clinical negligence terms, but even where the possible incompetence has no clin- ical consequences for the subject, the general obligation not to dobad science'
entails the duty to carry out only such research as can be done competently.
When the investigator is carrying out an educational project, the competence
requirement obviously varies somewhat. Additionally, innovative research may
well involve pushing the boundaries of the investigator's competence. What these
situations illustrate is that `competence 'is as much an institutional as an individual
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