Periodic Reporting for period 3 - PRO-Ethics (Participatory Real Life Experiments in Research and Innovation Funding Organisations on Ethics)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2023-12-31
In the last decades, the perception of societal outreach of research and innovation (R&I) has moved from an information-push oriented ‘public understanding of science’ approach to a ‘science with and for society’ understanding. R&I policymakers realised it is not enough to punctually involve societal stakeholders at later stages of R&I to ensure the best possible outcome and mitigate risks. Instead, the involvement of broad societal groups must be continuously ensured.
Unlike traditional approaches to RDI where researchers define research interests and methods, generate results, and interpret outcomes, participatory approaches enable societal groups to get involved as collaboration partners and shape the research agenda. This in turn bears heavy ethical risks, such as exploitation, technological divide, and the reproduction of societal inequalities. It also touches on questions of research integrity, such as a potential decrease in quality of the scientific process.
To address these issues, PRO-Ethics worked with 8 research funding organisations (RFOs) across Europe to test new, ethical ways of involving non-traditional stakeholders in their decision-making processes. The project focused on three fields of action of RFO activities: Participation in 1) innovation projects; 2) strategy development; and 3) evaluation processes. The overall objective was to create a comprehensive, co-developed, tested, and widely consulted Ethics Framework and Guidelines, to enable a more effective handling of the ethical dimension of participatory research and innovation and create more relevant, fair and effective R&I activities.
Unlike traditional approaches to RDI where researchers define research interests and methods, generate results, and interpret outcomes, participatory approaches enable societal groups to get involved as collaboration partners and shape the research agenda. This in turn bears heavy ethical risks, such as exploitation, technological divide, and the reproduction of societal inequalities. It also touches on questions of research integrity, such as a potential decrease in quality of the scientific process.
To address these issues, PRO-Ethics worked with 8 research funding organisations (RFOs) across Europe to test new, ethical ways of involving non-traditional stakeholders in their decision-making processes. The project focused on three fields of action of RFO activities: Participation in 1) innovation projects; 2) strategy development; and 3) evaluation processes. The overall objective was to create a comprehensive, co-developed, tested, and widely consulted Ethics Framework and Guidelines, to enable a more effective handling of the ethical dimension of participatory research and innovation and create more relevant, fair and effective R&I activities.
PRO-Ethics produced a total of 39 deliverables in the context of eight work packages. It organised 25 planned events with external stakeholders and 8 internal events, on top of numerous additional workshops and other event contributions.
In WP8, procedures for ethics committee approvals, recruitment of participants, and informed consent were broadly defined. Knowledge management, open access and data management were also addressed in this context, and further explored in WP7, where quality assurance procedures were also laid out in detail.
In WP1, the theoretical foundations of the project were laid, focusing on the legal and regulatory frameworks European RFOs operate in and outlining different approaches to the ethics in and of participation, concluding with the development of a Draft Ethics Framework and Guidelines, to support the design and evaluation of ethically sound participatory RFO activities. WP2 oversaw the development and implementation of participatory pilots in two phases, informing the development of the Draft Framework, followed by its testing and validation in second phase. WP2 also provided training, capacity building and support to pilot partners and saw the collaboration with outside RFO actors. WP3 entailed the collaborative development of a reporting and assessment tool for RFO partners, the cross-pilot learning efforts, and the collection of narrative “pilot stories”, which served as a tool for reflection and discussion. An IT tool was identified to facilitate participatory activities in the pilots and an e-consultation on the Ethics Framework and Guidelines. WP3 also analysed, evaluated and synthesised the pilot experiences.
WP4 identified relevant stakeholders and organised stakeholder engagement workshops with different target groups, as well as dialogue events with research ethics committees and integrity bodies. Towards the end of the project, 14 national and regional embedding events were implemented by various partners to share the ethics framework in partner countries’ ecosystems. The stakeholders collected for the mapping also supported the communication, dissemination and exploitation (CDE) efforts of WP6. WP5 directly continued the work of WP1 and synthesised the inputs of WP2, WP3 and WP4 to develop a final version of the Ethics Framework and Guidelines. A booklet version of these documents was also developed. This overall feedback process was supported by the development of a concept to properly monitor and evaluate the participatory activities of the project. In WP6, the project identity was developed, a website and social media presence were established, and an accessible project flyer and poster were designed. An animated video, two project films, 4 policy briefs, ten newsletters, and 45 blogposts were released. While the consortium partners served as multipliers for the PRO-Ethics social media accounts, they also organised and participated in various conferences, workshops and other events to raise the profile of the project. A final conference was organised in collaboration with the COESO project and found a live audience of 170 participants from all key stakeholder communities.
In WP8, procedures for ethics committee approvals, recruitment of participants, and informed consent were broadly defined. Knowledge management, open access and data management were also addressed in this context, and further explored in WP7, where quality assurance procedures were also laid out in detail.
In WP1, the theoretical foundations of the project were laid, focusing on the legal and regulatory frameworks European RFOs operate in and outlining different approaches to the ethics in and of participation, concluding with the development of a Draft Ethics Framework and Guidelines, to support the design and evaluation of ethically sound participatory RFO activities. WP2 oversaw the development and implementation of participatory pilots in two phases, informing the development of the Draft Framework, followed by its testing and validation in second phase. WP2 also provided training, capacity building and support to pilot partners and saw the collaboration with outside RFO actors. WP3 entailed the collaborative development of a reporting and assessment tool for RFO partners, the cross-pilot learning efforts, and the collection of narrative “pilot stories”, which served as a tool for reflection and discussion. An IT tool was identified to facilitate participatory activities in the pilots and an e-consultation on the Ethics Framework and Guidelines. WP3 also analysed, evaluated and synthesised the pilot experiences.
WP4 identified relevant stakeholders and organised stakeholder engagement workshops with different target groups, as well as dialogue events with research ethics committees and integrity bodies. Towards the end of the project, 14 national and regional embedding events were implemented by various partners to share the ethics framework in partner countries’ ecosystems. The stakeholders collected for the mapping also supported the communication, dissemination and exploitation (CDE) efforts of WP6. WP5 directly continued the work of WP1 and synthesised the inputs of WP2, WP3 and WP4 to develop a final version of the Ethics Framework and Guidelines. A booklet version of these documents was also developed. This overall feedback process was supported by the development of a concept to properly monitor and evaluate the participatory activities of the project. In WP6, the project identity was developed, a website and social media presence were established, and an accessible project flyer and poster were designed. An animated video, two project films, 4 policy briefs, ten newsletters, and 45 blogposts were released. While the consortium partners served as multipliers for the PRO-Ethics social media accounts, they also organised and participated in various conferences, workshops and other events to raise the profile of the project. A final conference was organised in collaboration with the COESO project and found a live audience of 170 participants from all key stakeholder communities.
Through its processes and products, PRO-Ethics created impact on research and innovation ethics by developing, testing and distributing an Ethics Framework and Guidelines to support ethical stakeholder engagement in the activities of research funding organisations. The Ethics Framework and Guidelines were developed based on the insights from participatory pilots implemented by the RFO partners with a wide array of target groups, process goals, and recruitment and engagement formats, which themselves were aimed at producing institutional change and anchoring new interaction modes in their organisations while safeguarding ethical conduct. From these efforts, new engagement methodologies, funding instruments, evaluation instruments, networks and capacities were built within the various organisations involved in PRO-Ethics. These laid the groundwork to continue relevant activities in the future.
Because such participatory processes represent only a tiny minority of activities implemented and/or funded by research funding organisations, participation in PRO-Ethics also represents an opportunity to achieve greater buy-in within the larger organisations of the RFO partners of PRO-Ethics, and in turn more flexibility towards participatory approaches. The endorsement of the Ethics Framework and Guidelines by these funding agencies also heightens the visibility of the project outputs, which will be further raised with the availability of national language versions.
Through the intimate involvement of RFOs from the very beginning, the relevance and practical applicability of the Ethics Framework and Guidelines across different national ecosystems, governance structures, and use cases was ascertained. Further potential stakeholders were actively and continuously engaged in stakeholder activities, including RFOs across and beyond Europe, project and policy officers, ethics experts, research integrity bodies, NGOs, organisations engaging in citizen science activities, and other relevant projects. Due to the structure of the work plan, potential target groups were engaged in the development, validation and testing of the Ethics Framework and Guidelines, and received updates on project results throughout its runtime, laying the groundwork for further future impact.
Because such participatory processes represent only a tiny minority of activities implemented and/or funded by research funding organisations, participation in PRO-Ethics also represents an opportunity to achieve greater buy-in within the larger organisations of the RFO partners of PRO-Ethics, and in turn more flexibility towards participatory approaches. The endorsement of the Ethics Framework and Guidelines by these funding agencies also heightens the visibility of the project outputs, which will be further raised with the availability of national language versions.
Through the intimate involvement of RFOs from the very beginning, the relevance and practical applicability of the Ethics Framework and Guidelines across different national ecosystems, governance structures, and use cases was ascertained. Further potential stakeholders were actively and continuously engaged in stakeholder activities, including RFOs across and beyond Europe, project and policy officers, ethics experts, research integrity bodies, NGOs, organisations engaging in citizen science activities, and other relevant projects. Due to the structure of the work plan, potential target groups were engaged in the development, validation and testing of the Ethics Framework and Guidelines, and received updates on project results throughout its runtime, laying the groundwork for further future impact.