RAPID: Ethical Decision-Making about Conducting Essential Research in a Pandemic: Experiences of Principal Investigators and Research Personnel

COVID-19疫情使研究人员面临前所未有的挑战。这些挑战之一是需要确定正在进行的或新的研究项目是否必须在危机期间亲自进行，如果是，哪些研究人员应该进行这项研究。这些决定由于面临各种挑战而变得更加困难，包括极端的时间压力、指导不足或模糊不清、个人和专业上的相互权衡，以及对受这些决定影响的人产生的不确定后果。需要对这些决定的道德和实践层面有透彻的理解，以帮助研究人员和机构官员更好地为在未来危机中管理科学工作者做好准备。该项目旨在了解主要研究人员在当前大流行期间如何做出这些决定，并确定影响他们决策的环境因素，以及这些决定如何影响他们实验室的研究人员（例如，研究生、博士后、技术人员、科学家）。来自该项目的数据可以帮助更好地了解主要研究者在未来类似情况下如何处理具有挑战性的决策，以及研究人员如何看待这些决策并受其影响。对于研究人员和受益于其工作的更广泛的社区来说，提高对此类紧急情况给重要研究人员带来的独特挑战的认识并加深对这些挑战的理解将是非常有价值的。该项目解决了两个主要研究问题：1）在COVID-19大流行期间，主要研究人员在决定是否以及如何进行面对面研究项目时，会受到哪些伦理考虑和实际挑战的影响？,以及2）研究人员如何根据他们之间的关系和流行病的背景从道德上评估他们的PI的决策和决策过程？数据收集将使用混合方法进行，以综合来自主要研究者和研究人员的基于定量调查的信息，并与选定的研究人员，研究生和研究人员进行访谈。最初的调查将由数百名NSF和NIH资助的科学家和研究助理完成，并将对选定的参与者进行后续采访。然后将对数据进行综合、分析和解释。调查结果将广泛传播，以使研究人员在今后的紧急情况中受益。对这些问题的回答有助于对伦理决策、伦理研究文化、研究领导和流行病政策制定的研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The COVID-19 pandemic has confronted researchers with unprecedented challenges. One of these challenges is the need to determine whether ongoing or new research projects are essential to conduct in-person during the crisis, and if so, which research personnel should conduct this research. Such decisions have been made all the more difficult by the challenges that plague them, including extreme time pressures, insufficient or vague guidance, competing personal and professional trade-offs, and uncertain ramifications for those affected by these decisions. A thorough understanding of the ethical and practical dimensions of these decisions is needed to help researchers and institutional officials better prepare for managing the scientific workforce during future crises. This project aims to understand how principal investigators have made these decisions during the current pandemic and identify the factors in their environments that shaped their decision-making, and how these decisions impact research personnel in their lab (e.g., graduate students, postdocs, technicians, staff scientists). Data from this project can help improve understanding about how principal investigators might approach challenging decision-making during similar future situations and how research personnel perceive and are affected by these decisions. Fostering enhanced awareness of and deepened appreciation for the unique challenges such emergencies pose to essential researchers will be valuable for researchers and the broader community that benefits from their work.This project addresses two primary research questions: 1) what ethical considerations and practical challenges shape principal investigators’ decision-making about whether and how to conduct in-person research projects during the COVID-19 pandemic?, and 2) how do research personnel ethically appraise their PI’s decisions and decision processes in light of their relationship and the context of the pandemic? Data collection will proceed using a mixed-methods approach to synthesize quantitative survey-based information from principal investigators and research personnel and interviews with select researchers, graduate students, and research staff. Initial surveys will be completed by hundreds of NSF- and NIH-funded scientists and research assistants, and follow-up interviews will be conducted with select participants. Data will then be synthesized, analyzed, and interpreted. Findings will be disseminated widely to benefit researchers in future emergencies. Answering these questions contributes to the research on ethical decision-making, ethical research cultures, research leadership, and pandemic policy-making.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.