In recent decades, the landscape of social sciences research has undergone significant transformation, driven primarily by two key trends. Firstly, the internationalisation of higher education has spurred institutions and researchers to cultivate global collaborations and engage in comparative research across diverse national contexts (Kwiek, 2021; Williamson et al., 2019). Secondly, there has been a burgeoning research focus on comprehending the dynamics of digital spaces, with a particular emphasis on the broader impact of social media (Ball & Traxler, 2023; Black et al., 2022; Literat & Kligler-Vilenchik, 2018). These interconnected trends consistently shape various facets of social sciences research today, and into the future, including its research agenda, funding allocation, research evaluation processes, and institutional frameworks for research activities, including institutional review boards (IRB) and ethics clearance processes and procedures (Hillman, 2023; Peled-Raz et al., 2021).

Ethical approval is a crucial step in the research planning process serving both as a risk management tool (McAreavey & Muir, 2011) and, in some cases, as a significant potential obstacle in project implementation (Head, 2020; Merrill & Whitsel, 2017; Taylor et al., 2020). Research has documented that the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process, which involves obtaining ethical approval for projects, is shaped not only by the study’s subject matter, but also by context sensitive research settings, and data management and protection issues (Graffigna et al., 2010; Whiteman, 2018). Additionally, ethical considerations extend to the  handling of sensitive topics (Dawson et al., 2017; Vaughan, 2023; Winter & Gundur, 2024) and potential impact on young individuals (van Woudenberg et al., 2023). All these issues form an intricacy of contemporary social science research, which flexible nature often contradicts the static form of research approval (Brown, 2023).

This study serves as a reflective exploration into the process of obtaining ethical approval through institutional IRBs for an international project funded by the European Research Council (ERC). The project itself focuses on the analysis of youth activism, employing retrospective analysis of social media accounts of young activists and prospective inquiry using a photovoice methodology with selected sample of those young activists. Additionally, secondary school aged students are invited in freely structured group discussions on global citizenship issues.  The project includes data collection across six countries: Australia, Germany, Italy, Poland, the UK, and the US.

As shown above, existing scholarship has highlighted potential challenges in research involving minors, privacy concerns related to social media, and discussions on sensitive issues. This project, having encountered these challenges on multiple levels, further invites the discussion around ethical approval processes. To do this, our paper encompasses perspectives from both junior and senior scholars participating in the project, addresses the current state of affairs in IRB approvals, and discusses the practice of implementing a large-scale cross country comparative project. Our study is framed by three key research questions:

1. To what extent do higher education institutions balance country-specific legal policies and the requirements of cross-cultural research projects?;
2. What are the perspectives of junior and senior scholars regarding the goals and processes involved in obtaining ethical approvals?; and
3. What are the primary concerns of ethical committees in the multinational projects that involve minors, sensitive issues, and the collection of data from social media?

Within the study, we scrutinise how the structural procedures within higher education institutions in each of the involved countries, along with the ERC, shape the ethical approval procedures of the project. This investigation involves a cross-sectional analysis of the submission protocols submitted to institutional ethics committees in each participating country, as well as thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with project partners. We adopted a single case study approach to examine the project within its real-world context (Yin, 2009). Our survey procedures included: 1) Analysing institutional regulations and protocols related to the project in each participating institution in six countries; and 2) Conducting semi-structured interviews with both junior and senior scholars actively involved in preparing documents, submitting applications, interacting with ethics committees, and, ultimately, obtaining approvals. During the interview, participants were prompted to reflect on the various aspects of the IRB application process, encompassing their perspectives regarding communication with the boards, ethical committees’ areas of focus, and any additional requests made. Additionally, participants provided their personal opinions on the overall process. The interview transcripts underwent coding using a thematic analysis approach (Braun & Clarke, 2021). The comparative framework for the document and procedure analysis, based on institutional regulations and protocols in each participating institution, included the analysis of the process, focal issues, anonymity, and submission difficulty.

The research project’s findings illuminate three key paradoxes identified through inductive analysis of the collected data. These paradoxes significantly impact both the ethical approval processes and the overall research outcomes. Firstly, despite the institution emphasising their commitment to fostering international research collaborations, IRBs predominantly evaluate the ethical aspects of the project from a national standpoint. This inadvertently hinders international research efforts, imposing constraints on the project's global collaborations. This is exemplified by institutions prioritising risk-aversion and protectionist values. Secondly, despite the inherently global nature of activities on social networks, with predominant English-language communication and access to information worldwide, the approval processes and the perspectives of project partners tend to perceive social network activities as localised endeavours. These activities are subject to adherence to national rules and regulations, particularly concerning the protection of minors. The final paradox pertains to the pan-European approach adopted by both the ERC and committees within EU institutions. While European partners view the world as a global entity, they simultaneously establish legal, normative, and empirical distinctions between activities within Europe and those conducted globally. This occurs despite the practical similarity in procedures between committees in institutions worldwide and European institutions themselves. Collectively, these paradoxes highlight the intricate and often contradictory dynamics shaping the ethical landscape of international research projects. They call for a reassessment of prevailing frameworks and practices to better align with the globalised nature of contemporary collaborative research.

Ball, Traxler. (2023). #Academicchatter: Methodological and ethical considerations for conducting Twitter research in education. International Journal of Research & Method in Education. Black, Walsh, Waite, Collin, Third, Idriss. (2022). In their own words: 41 stories of young people’s digital citizenship. Learning, Media and Technology. Braun, & Clarke, (2021). Thematic Analysis: A Practical Guide. SAGE. Brown. (2023). Research ethics in a changing social sciences landscape. Research Ethics. Dawson, McDonnell, Scott. (2017). Note on recruitment as an ethical question: Lessons from a project on asexuality. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. Graffigna, Bosio, Olson. (2010). How do ethics assessments frame results of comparative qualitative research? A theory of technique approach. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. Head. (2020). Ethics in educational research: Review boards, ethical issues and researcher development. European Educational Research Journal. Hillman. (2023). Bringing in the technological, ethical, educational and social-structural for a new education data governance. Learning, Media and Technology. Kwiek. (2021). What large-scale publication and citation data tell us about international research collaboration in Europe: Changing national patterns in global contexts. Studies in Higher Education. Literat, Kligler-Vilenchik. (2018). Youth online political expression in non-political spaces: Implications for civic education. Learning, Media and Technology. McAreavey, Muir. (2011). Research ethics committees: Values and power in higher education. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. Merrill, Whitsel. (2017). Institutional Review Boards and Intercultural Research Barriers. In I. Silova, N. W. Sobe, A. Korzh, & S. Kovalchuk (Eds.), Reimagining Utopias: Theory and Method for Educational Research in Post-Socialist Contexts. Peled-Raz, Tzafrir, Enosh, Efron, Doron. (2021). Ethics Review Boards for Research with Human Participants: Past, Present, and Future. Qualitative Health Research Taylor, Taylor-Neu, Butterwick. (2020). “Trying to square the circle”: Research ethics and Canadian higher education. European Educational Research Journal. van Woudenberg, Rozendaal, Buijzen. (2023). Parents’ perceptions of parental consent procedures for social science research in the school context. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. Vaughan. (2023). Principle versus practice: The Institutionalisation of ethics and research on the far right. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. Whiteman. (2018). Accounting for ethics: Towards a de-humanised comparative approach. Qualitative Research. Williamson, Potter, Eynon. (2019). New research problems and agendas in learning, media and technology: The editors’ wishlist. Learning, Media and Technology. Winter, Gundur. (2024). Challenges in gaining ethical approval for sensitive digital social science studies. International Journal of Social Research Methodology. Yin, R. K. (2009). Case Study Research: Design and Methods. SAGE.