On Ethics in Science

On Ethics in Science

 On this year’s Rector’s Day (20 October) we also celebrated World Ethics Day, which has been promoted since 2014 by Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. The purpose of the activities, which take place around the world every year on the third Wednesday in October, is to raise awareness of the importance of ethics at various levels.

At the University of Primorska, we decided to focus our activities on ethics in research, as this topic plays an important role in science, since scientific research deals with sensitive contents that can have important consequences for the individual and the society. Some of ethics-related topics are addressed and regulated by laws and state commissions, such as the issue of genetic modification of organisms or research that interferes with the human body. However, there are also lesser known, but no less important, moral issues that arise, for example, in the field of information technologies, psychology and education, as well as in the broader scientific work. Therefore, at UP there are three commissions and one group that deal directly with the issue of ethics and integrity in research and academia.

On October 20, we organized a conference entitled Ethical Dilemmas in Scientific Research: Inclusion of Ethics at UP. We were honoured that Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs included it in the list of events held on this year's World Ethics Day around the globe.

The conference was attended by: Assoc. Prof. Tomaž Grušovnik, Phd (The role of ethics in research), Assoc. Prof. Vita Poštuvan, Phd (Experiences and working methods of the UP Commission for Ethics in Research, which includes working with people), Prof. Tomaž Pisanski, Phd (Work of the UP Ethics Committee), UP Integrity Plan Administrator Ingrid Orel (Challenges of the UP Integrity Plan Working Group) and Tina Tinkara Peternelj, PhD (Experiences of the Research Ethics Commission of the Department of Psychology, UP FAMNIT). The final discussion on the integration of ethical aspects of research into UP systems was led by Prof. Ernest Ženko, PhD.

On ethics also for the international public

On the eve of World Ethics Day, Assoc. prof. Tomaž Grušovnik delivered a lecture on the current role of ethics in research within the international project ResBios – RESponsible research and innovation grounding practices in BIOSciences (Horizon 2020 Programme), in which UP FAMNIT participates and combines research and innovation in the field of biosciences. The lecture was focused on ethical methodologies and the justifiably expected results of ethical analysis. In addition to this, Prof. Grušovnik explained three general moral paradigms – utilitarianism, rule ethics, and virtue ethics, and discussed how these ideas relate to modern research, and to environmental and animal ethics (land ethics and deep ecology). Special attention was dedicated to different models of professional attitudes at workplace (paternalistic, technical, cooperative, and friendly) and the web of main stakeholders in ethical judgement were briefly presented (subjects, researchers, data, community).

You can watch the lecture on the link below.