Building Capacity for Research Ethics: Policy Insights For Nepal

Knowledge and skills in research ethics are essential for conducting ethically responsible research. Despite some local policies, strategic guidelines, and manuals on the antithesis of research misconduct, researchers’ adherence to research ethics, especially ethically responsible conduct of research, is still critical in developing countries like Nepal. This study explores the policy provisions to develop researchers’ capacity on research ethics in Nepal. With the aim, we identified ten key documents related to research ethics from the University Grants Commission (UGC), Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC), and Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MoEST). We analysed the provisions using the adapted version of Cooke’s framework for research capacity development. The result shows that although there are provisions for capacity development for scientific research, none provisioned that the higher education research institutions need to take action for developing early career researchers’ capacity on research ethics. Further, this review depicts several structural, institutional, and procedural limitations that make the condition difficult to adopt and implement those policies, strategic guidelines, and manuals.