Results

Brey, Philip, Clare Shelley-Egan, Rowena Rodrigues, Philip Jansen, “The Ethical Assessment of Research and Innovation – A Reflection on the State of the Art (Based on Findings of the SATORI Project)”, in Ron Iphofen FAcSS (ed.) Finding Common Ground: Consensus in…

This policy brief discusses implications and suggests to policy-makers how to improve the design of deployment policies and navigates businesses in policy-induced markets, and provides tools to help policy-makers and industry to foster ethical, responsible and sustainable R&I in industry, namely ethics assessment (EA) and ethical impact assessment (EIA) of R&I.

Who is it for: Policy-makers, research organisations, policy advisors, government research and innovation (R&I) departments interested in ethical impacts of research and innovation, private companies, R&I departments, national ethics committees,
research ethics committees, researchers.

Ensuring that R&I follows high ethical standards by reliable and efficient assessment procedures requires well-functioning national systems of ethics assessment based on internationally harmonised principles, which also facilitate international research collaboration.

This policy brief focuses on Research Funding Organisations (RFOs). RFOs, especially the European Commission, through their various funding programmes have a major leverage effect on how ethics is addressed in research and innovation. Ethics assessment at the European Union and Member States level has existed for decades in the field of clinical trials on drugs and medical devices. However, this has not been the case in other fields of research and innovation (R&I).

About the CWA The research results from work packages 1 and 4 have been used as the basis for a CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA). Existing procedures and best practices in ethics assessment were translated into a practical tool to implement…

CWA Part 1 makes recommendations for the composition, role, functioning and procedures of ethics committee. Organisations can use part 1 to strengthen and/or improve the ethics assessment of their research and innovation projects. Ethics committees include, but are not limited to, research ethics committees, institutional review boards, ethical review committees, ethics boards, and units consisting of one or more ethics officers. Part 1 of the CWA is applicable to all ethics committees, regardless of their size, scope or research and innovation area.

The SATORI project aims at supporting mutual learning in ethics assessment and guidance across stakeholders, and harmonising ethics assessment in Europe and beyond. Research ethics committees (RECs) form a crucial part of any framework for ethics assessment. Therefore, the SATORI project studied good practices in RECs aims, organisation and procedures across different institutions and jurisdictions. The present Policy Brief outlines our findings.

Responsible and Ethical Governance of Research and Innovation in the Context of Globalization In June 2015, consortium partners, leading authorities and experts met at a conference at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris to deliberate on the project’s findings so far and…