The next five chapters form the core of the textbook, each being focused either on a key issue in research ethics or
a set of closely related ethical issues. Organising the material in this way, rather than by type of research, has two advantages.
First, it minimises repetition since each ethical issue arises in many types of research. Second, it maximises the
book’s relevance to researchers and ethics committee members across a wide range of scientific (and other) fields,
since the ethical issues can easily be extrapolated to types of research other than those that are used to illustrate them.
In the experience of the authors, researchers and research ethics committee members, having been introduced to an
ethical issue in one context, are readily able to suggest further examples from their own experience.