MRS publishes deliberative research guidelines

UK— The Market Research Society (MRS) has published guidelines for deliberative research, following a consultation period on draft guidelines.

The new guidelines come as an addendum to the existing guidelines for qualitative research.

They deal, among other things, with how to manage the information provided to participants in deliberative research and the responsibilities of the researcher in managing the involvement of clients and other stakeholders.

The guidelines say researchers should provide an initial risk assessment with their proposals, covering the time that may need to be spent designing materials and defending processes or results. For particularly complex projects researchers should consider using an established project management process such as Prince2.

The full guidelines can be found online here.

Involve, a non-profit organisation promoting public participation, published a set of principles for deliberative public engagement in 2008.