Elaborating an ethics framework on how citizens’ engagement can be properly put in place without disregarding ethical principles

The implementation of participatory practices for the development of innovations has gained prominence over the last years. Through introducing open R&I configurations innovators can gather additional knowledge about the needs and desires of citizens, public and semi-public caretakers, NGOs, social entrepreneurs etc. and thus be able to answer those through innovative products and processes. However, the ways how this is done, how it is based on legal and regulatory frameworks and to what extent ethical issues are taken into account differ massively between various countries and contexts. Furthermore, concrete concerns regarding the protection of participating non-traditional stakeholders (e.g. citizens) and their potential exploitation emerge with these new modes of innovation.

Therefore, PRO-Ethics elaborates an ethics framework with principles, guidelines, assessment criteria, good practice and proposals on regulatory environments on how citizens’ engagement can be properly put in place without disregarding ethical principles of fairness, transparency, gender, privacy and sustainability. This is done through iterative discourse and learning loops together with eight participating research funding organisations (RFOs), five expert partners and two international organisations. Furthermore, the framework is applied, tested and validated in real life through 11 practical cases and experimental pilots implemented by the RFOs in three different action fields (i.e. project funding; strategy development and evaluation). PRO-Ethics has an European-wide outreach, nevertheless, it incorporates and compares local conditions and other specific and cultural characteristics of the partnering RFOs from Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Lithuania, Norway, Romania, Spain and Brussels implementing the PRO-Ethics cases and pilots.

Team:

• Stefanie Schuerz, MA
• Dr. Dorothea Sturn (project leader)
• Dr. Magª. ilse Marschalek
• Magª. Maria Schrammel
• Mag. Dr. Klaus Schuch

Section: Research Policy & Development

Partners:

• Austrian Research Promotion Agency
• Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI)
• Delft University of Technology
• EUREKA
• European Network of Research Ethics Committees - EUREC
• Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques
• Fonden Teknologirådet
• Nesta LBG
• Research Council of Norway
• Romanian Executive Agency for Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation Funding
• Technology Agency of the Czech Republic
• The Brussels Institute for Research and Innovation (INNOVIRIS)
• The Research Council of Lithuania
• VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH

Related Articles:

• News: Kick-off PRO-Ethics
• News: PRO-Ethics Online Cross-Learning Workshop
• News: PRO-Ethics launches its project website
• News: First PRO-Ethics Newsletter
• News: First PRO-Ethics Policy Brief
• Event: Participatory Evaluation in Citizen Science

Tags: citizen science, ethics, research and innovation policy, research cooperation