In this article, we focus on the ethics of a distinctive
type of study: evaluations of programmes, initiatives,
policies and interventions that would occur
whether or not any research activity was taking
place. That is to say, in these cases the research is not
the cause, in a counterfactual sense, of the intervention
being applied to human subjects. The primary
goal, from the perspective of the leaders and the
organisations initiating and implementing the activities,
which we will collectively term ‘programmes’,
is to make change and improvement, not to produce
knowledge.