CHANGER Manual_Peer-Based Ethical Consultation for Qualitative Research

In qualitative research in the social sciences and humanities (SSH), as well as in other evolving study designs, ethical questions often arise during the research process and can only be anticipated to a limited extent in advance. Thus, ex-ante ethics reviews face limitations. This document presents a tool for peer-based ethical consultation designed to support researchers’ ethical reflexivity and to complement formal ethics review processes. It can also be used independently of such reviews.

The manual provides a step-by-step guide to establishing and conducting peer consultations and includes selected questions intended to foster ethical reflexivity and problem-solving. The tool offers flexible support that is methodologically attuned to qualitative research practices, while remaining attentive to resource constraints. It is an adaptation of the consultative ethics review approach (developed within the project CHANGER) (Rauhala et al. 2026) for qualitative research in SSH and is primarily geared towards the German context, although it may also be useful in other settings.