Research that involves human participants raises a number of complex social, political, legal, and ethical issues. Research ethics is particularly interested in the analysis of such issues. The three main aims of research ethics are to protect participants in research, ensure that research is conducted in ways that benefit the participants, groups, and/or society as a whole, and to look into particular research and projects in order to check for their ethicality in terms of risk management, protecting confidentiality, and privacy of participants among other things.

Regulation within research ethics is based on internationally recognized regulations presented in the Declarations of Helsinki, the Belmont Report, and the Declaration of Oviedo in Europe. As medicine and technology is developing at a rapid pace, the issues that are facing researchers are becoming even more complex. Scientists have greater responsibilities. Yet, as Einstein once said, “Relativity applies to physics, not to ethics”.