I am working on an European Union funded project called RESPECT and am emailing to seek help with a consultation exercise we are conducting. RESPECT was funded to synthesise existing professional and ethical guidelines for socio-economic research, put these together with the new legal requirements covering data protection and intellectual property, and draw up a voluntary professional and ethical code which might have a chance of being adopted for EU research. The project involves partners from a number of EU countries and includes those with legal expertise in data protection and intellectual property as well as socio-economic researchers with experience in professsional and ethical issues. The current draft code summarises work done by all the partners in their different areas of expertise. The draft code is available on the project website: www.respectproject.org.co - click on outcomes and go to the bottom of that page to click on code of practice. There are also instructions about how to submit comments. We would welcome comments from anyone with an interest in any or all of these issues. I realise that many of you may not be involved with EU research, but any thoughts you have on the broader professional and ethical areas would be valuable. Please do circulate this request to anyone else you know who might be interested. Thank you in anticipation Sally