Reimagining research ethics for the participatory and transformative turn: Between reflexive accountability and accountable reflexivity

As academic research becomes more participatory and transformation-oriented, university ethics governance faces mounting pressure to move beyond procedural compliance. Existing ethics review systems are often criticised for risk aversion and standardisation, yet less attention has been paid to how ethics governance is enacted, interpreted, and negotiated by those who administer it. This study examines how institutional ethics review can function not only as a regulatory mechanism, but also as a generative site for institutional learning.Drawing on an action learning research design, we collaborated with members of a university research ethics board in the Netherlands. This approach enabled closed examination of how its members navigate evolving ethical demands associated with the growing normative responses and expectations for academia and research institutions. Our analysis identifies a set of persistent tensions that give rise to two patterned governance logics: reflexive accountability, which emphasises safeguarding, institutional defensibility, and ex-ante procedural stabilisation; and accountable reflexivity, which frames ethics as an ongoing, relational practice oriented toward ongoing dialogue and situated judgment. Rather than representing opposing positions, we show how these logics coexist in productive tension in practice. Maintaining this tension helps explain why procedural reforms alone often fall short; it also reveals openings for more adaptive governance arrangements.Methodologically, the study contributes a relational and practice-oriented approach that positions research ethics board members as reflective practitioners rather than procedural gatekeepers. Analytically, it advances debates on ethics reform by reframing governance as a dynamic institutional practice. The paper concludes with four institutional imaginaries that operationalise the governance logics: regulatory ethics governance, embedded ethics facilitation, community-integrated ethics stewardship, and post-institutional research ethics ecosystems. Future research and engagement efforts can use these imaginaries as dialogical and dialectical anchor points for negotiating research ethics governance and institutional change.