Ethics

History offers countless examples of societies questioning the purpose of science. The most obvious are the diversion of research to ideological or military ends, which reveals the extent of human ingenuity to subjugate their fellows. But other areas can also be affected by ethical issues, because of their environmental and societal impact, e.g. geoengineering, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, the unconventional use of medicines, and more.

 

The question of ethics is also raised by the use of public research funds for the benefit of private interests that are solely profit driven. While the industry is an essential component in scaling up innovations that serve the public interest, it can also be a field for abuse, like when some companies exploit public funding to recruit PhD students on high profit-generating projects.

 

Ethics also addresses the methods of scientific research. The responsibility of researchers is to provide reliable results, to be impartial, to respect the moral framework defined by the law and to restrain from any excess in their communication and their public or political positions. In this regard, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted reprehensible practices, individual or collective, by some researchers who raced to publish and publicize their work, setting aside their responsibility and duties.

 

Competition between private organizations, or between nations, can also lead to the evasion of basic ethical rules, or to practice “ethical dumping” by offshoring research activities that they could not initially endorse. These phenomena also fuel obscurantists rhetoric against science.

 

Ethics and integrity are essential components of research excellence. They help to ensure a fair balance between the desire for intellectual freedom and the duty of researchers to act with integrity, both to their employers and to society in general. Our ambition is to develop independent thinking on the ethical aspects of research and education, so that ethical standards and codes of conduct can be globally developed within a democratic framework. We also believe that it is essential to develop ethical monitoring mechanisms in order to identify any practices that are contrary to the general interest.