Team:TU Darmstadt/HP/Ethics
Responsible Research
How to ensure that our project is ethically justifiable
Already the main idea of our project is based on an ethical consideration: Aren’t we humans responsible for cleaning up the waste we create? How can we achieve this?
It shows that our project is not only focused on gaining scientific knowledge but also to be a benefit for the world and the society. Therefore, it is important to think about ethic and responsibility and how to develop a responsible project.
Ethics and science have always been connected. Nowadays this is way more complex than just having a checklist to analyze if someone's research is ethically justifiable. About this we talked with Prof. Alfred Nordmann, a professor for philosophy at the TU Darmstadt and expert for Philosophy of Science and Technoscience . An important term in today's discourse is Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), that is used by the European Union's Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development. It describes that during the whole research process, scientists work together with other social actors like citizens or policy makers. Thereby the processes and outcomes should be aligned better with values, expectations and needs of the society[1]. Simplified, this means to talk with all stakeholders and groups that could be attached by the project and research. iGEM includes this important part of a project in Human Practices, Integrated Human Practices and Public Engagement. Relating to our project “B-TOX” we tried to talk to several experts to learn about the environmental impact of micropollutants, the practicability of our ideas in the laboratory, the implementation of “B-TOX” or of course the need of our project. One of these experts was Prof. Andreas Jürgens of the Department of Biology at the TU Darmstadt, with whom we talked about risk evaluation. He mentioned the examination of the possible worst-case scenario and resulting consequences to make sure that this will not occur. For us this meant to concentrate on making our “B-TOX” as save as possible and ensure that no genetically modified organism can escape into the environment (see Safety for more details), which is what we see as our worst-case scenario. This includes instructions how to handle “B-TOX” or our designed kill switch.
Involving the society in this process plays a critical role, because their acceptance is needed for a successful implementation of our project. Therefore, science communication and interaction are important. This year the direct interaction with citizens and society was difficult due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is why we tried to get in touch with the society with a survey and moreover focused on science communication, keeping in mind that it is still important to enter into a dialogue with the appropriated people.
The opinion on a special project is always dependent on the personal system of values and goes beyond the prevailing legal situation. Before we talked to several experts, we wanted to gain insight into the opinions and views of our team member so we started a round table discussion. This helped us developing questions we want to ask.
The combination of our project with ethics and responsible research is an important issue for us and we wanted to share our process in this area in public. Therefore, we discussed this topic in a podcast episode of our podcast Genomenal including the input we got from several experts.
So, what did we learn while dealing with ethics and responsible research?
Research should be a continuing process considering all possible stakeholders. Thereby questions can arise to which one still does not know the answer. It is important to communicate them clearly and to further develop the project with the best conscience.
It shows that our project is not only focused on gaining scientific knowledge but also to be a benefit for the world and the society. Therefore, it is important to think about ethic and responsibility and how to develop a responsible project.
Ethics and science have always been connected. Nowadays this is way more complex than just having a checklist to analyze if someone's research is ethically justifiable. About this we talked with Prof. Alfred Nordmann, a professor for philosophy at the TU Darmstadt and expert for Philosophy of Science and Technoscience . An important term in today's discourse is Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), that is used by the European Union's Framework Programmes for Research and Technological Development. It describes that during the whole research process, scientists work together with other social actors like citizens or policy makers. Thereby the processes and outcomes should be aligned better with values, expectations and needs of the society[1]. Simplified, this means to talk with all stakeholders and groups that could be attached by the project and research. iGEM includes this important part of a project in Human Practices, Integrated Human Practices and Public Engagement. Relating to our project “B-TOX” we tried to talk to several experts to learn about the environmental impact of micropollutants, the practicability of our ideas in the laboratory, the implementation of “B-TOX” or of course the need of our project. One of these experts was Prof. Andreas Jürgens of the Department of Biology at the TU Darmstadt, with whom we talked about risk evaluation. He mentioned the examination of the possible worst-case scenario and resulting consequences to make sure that this will not occur. For us this meant to concentrate on making our “B-TOX” as save as possible and ensure that no genetically modified organism can escape into the environment (see Safety for more details), which is what we see as our worst-case scenario. This includes instructions how to handle “B-TOX” or our designed kill switch.
Involving the society in this process plays a critical role, because their acceptance is needed for a successful implementation of our project. Therefore, science communication and interaction are important. This year the direct interaction with citizens and society was difficult due to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is why we tried to get in touch with the society with a survey and moreover focused on science communication, keeping in mind that it is still important to enter into a dialogue with the appropriated people.
The opinion on a special project is always dependent on the personal system of values and goes beyond the prevailing legal situation. Before we talked to several experts, we wanted to gain insight into the opinions and views of our team member so we started a round table discussion. This helped us developing questions we want to ask.
The combination of our project with ethics and responsible research is an important issue for us and we wanted to share our process in this area in public. Therefore, we discussed this topic in a podcast episode of our podcast Genomenal including the input we got from several experts.
So, what did we learn while dealing with ethics and responsible research?
Research should be a continuing process considering all possible stakeholders. Thereby questions can arise to which one still does not know the answer. It is important to communicate them clearly and to further develop the project with the best conscience.
References
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/responsible-research-innovation (accessed on October 18,2020)