"The geometry and the depth of the cleat has got to be formalised, regulated and deemed safe.
Races gradually became more formalised, and regulations were introduced prohibiting colleges from using professional rowers or members of other colleges.
The key drivers for APN role development in many countries has been medical substitution alongside a strong professionalising impetus in which enhanced status, recognition and remuneration is accorded to nursing roles through a formalised process of regulation and educational preparation [ 4].
Other scholars (see Coomber 2002; Hammersley 2006, 2009; Stanley and Wise 2010) have further commented on the contradictions that lie at the heart of the actual workings of formalised research ethics regulations and structures, such that these 'rupture the relationship between following the rules and acting ethically' (Haggerty 2004: 391).
Truman (2003), for example, has identified formalised ethical guidelines and regulations as protecting institutional interests without necessarily addressing the moral obligations of researchers, and thus introducing inequalities within the process of research production itself.
Since the focus of our discussion in this paper is mainly the workings of the formalised 'ethics' frameworks and regulations on the ground, it is important to mention here that our study involved gaining ethics approval from our university-based research ethics committee.
It has been argued that these formalised, institutional frameworks and regulations within which research is routinely performed are deeply embedded in (and shaped by) existing social hierarchies and social relations, and therefore these often work to structure power imbalances and inequalities within the research process itself (see Huisman 2008; Truman 2003; Wilson and Neville 2009).
Recent scholarship on research methodologies and ethics has begun to point strongly to the incongruities that often exist between formalised research ethics frameworks and regulations – enforced upon those undertaking funded academic research, and research participants' own perspectives and lived experiences of research (see Buckle, Dwyer and Jackson 2010; Truman 2003).
This also fails to take into account the powerful, and often contradictory, influence of the formalised ethical and methodological frameworks and regulations relating to both the research process and the research relationships that emerge in 'the field'.
This is particularly important in a context where the majority of staff are mid-level cadres for whom regulation and guidelines may not be as formalised or well-developed as for traditional cadres, such as registered nurses and medical doctors.
