The Human Terrain System (HTS) is a U.S. Army project whose purpose is to provide socioculturally relevant information to support decision-making, enhance operational effectiveness, and preserve and share sociocultural institutional knowledge. This is accomplished primarily through face-to-face interviews, surveys, and focus groups conducted among a local population supported by secondary open-source research. Thirty HTS teams are currently employed in Afghanistan, serving alongside battalions, brigades, and divisions. HTS hires social scientists from a wide variety of disciplines. These individuals are trained in ethical standards consistent with generally accepted practice within the research community. For human subjects research, HTS complies with ethical principles and guidelines set forth in the Belmont Report, the “Common Rule” federal regulatory framework governing human subjects research, and (as well as ) DoD-specific guidelines addressing research.