COVID-19 is compromising all aspects of society, with devastating impacts on health, political, social, economic and educational spheres. A premium is being placed on scientific research as the source of possible solutions, with a situational imperative to carry out investigations at an accelerated rate. There is a major challenge not to neglect ethical standards, in a context where doing so may mean the difference between life and death. In this paper we offer a rubric for considering the ethical challenges in COVID-19 related research, in the form of an ethics toolkit for global research developed at the University of Edinburgh in collaboration with more than 200 global researchers from around the world. This toolkit provides a framework to support confrontation of ethical conflicts through the integrated and iterative analysis of Place, People, Principles and Precedents, throughout the research journey. Two case analyses are offered to exemplify the utility of the toolkit as a flexible and dynamic tool to promote ethical research in the context of COVID-19.

The 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals have heightened awareness of the interconnectedness of our global future resulting in new research priorities and corresponding funding to address complex global challenges through partnership. This has generated the potential for powerful new solutions but also for ethical risks within and between disciplinary, geographic and cultural boundaries, in turn necessitating a greater emphasis on equitable partnerships and novel, just, transdisciplinary methodological approaches. Given this changing global research landscape, current ethical frameworks can seem fragmented, incoherent and no longer fitfor-purpose. The objectives of this scoping review were to (i) identify key issues of research ethics and integrity in GCR; and (ii) practices that can help address them. The review yielded 65, which were analysed in depth. Thematic analysis informed the development of a 4-part framework to support ethical action through analysis of ethical dilemmas pre-emptively and dynamically: Place (contextual ethical issues associated with cultural and language differences), People (ethical issues associated with human relationships involving participants and/or the research team), Principles (the worldview and values that influence decision making during the research) and Precedent (the way in which the research provides useful information to solve complex problems in a fragile context).

This article tackles the question whether it is a viable strategy to conduct online surveys among university students in developing countries. By documenting the methodology of the National Service Scheme Survey conducted in Ghana, we set out to answer three questions: (1) How can a sample of university students be obtained? (2) How can students be motivated to cooperate in online surveys? (3) What kind of devices do students use for completing an online survey? Our results indicate that online strategies can be very useful to reach this particular target group, if the necessary precautions are taken.

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China is considered as a significant development partner in Nigeria; yet relations between the two countries have been marked by episodes of oscillations. This paper engages three interconnected questions: (i) What is the history of Sino-Nigeria relations? (ii) How has Nigeria's political elites and ordinary Nigerians reacted to Chinese presence? (iii) To what extent is Sino-Nigeria relations beneficial to Nigeria? This paper while identifying and discussing the benefits and underbellies of Sino-Nigeria relations, draws attention to aspects of the relations less discussed in the literature. It concludes that beyond the more popular yet simplistic Janus-headed explication of Sino-Nigeria relations as positive or negative, significant focus is needed to understand the instabilities capable of impacting on the developmental potential of China in Nigeria.