Compensation Issues

The Common Rule does not address compensation of subjects for participation in research. However, good ethical practice suggests that:

Researchers should be careful about compensating subjects who are placed at risk, so that the payment is not seen as coercive. A high payment may induce a needy participant to take a risk that they normally would clearly prefer not to take. That concern would not exist when the risk is minimal.
Advertising the amount of compensation, in order to give information to potential subjects, poses no risk or ethical problem.
Sometimes compensation can take the form of a lottery. Provided that subjects do not risk their own money, this is not gambling. Lotteries are often part of the research design, for example in studies of attitudes towards risk. In assessing whether lotteries involve appropriate levels of compensation, the expected value (the prize amount divided by the number of contenders) of the lottery should be assessed, not the size of the largest prize.
Compensation may depend on circumstances or performance, for example, when participants are paid on the basis of the choices they and other participants make. The Common Rule does not suggest that this is improper, and researchers have not reported ethical or practical problems arising from these circumstances.
See the Research Manual for our policy on subject compensation for participation in research.