NetEthics: Building Tools & Training to Advance Responsible Conduct in Complex Research Networks Pioneering Novel Technologies

网络伦理项目将在负责任地进行大型、复杂的工程研究项目方面取得重大进展，例如NSF资助的工程研究中心(ERCs)。工程研究越来越多地涉及跨多所大学和其他机构的大型多学科团队，以开发新技术。然而，缺乏帮助这些团队进行合乎道德的研究和开发技术以造福社会的工具。相反，当前的研究伦理和工具倾向于要么关注研究人员个人的责任，要么关注新技术将引发的广泛的社会问题。光谱的这两个极端--个人的微观层面和总体影响的宏观层面--在中间留下了一个令人不安的缺口，因为它几乎没有为复杂研究网络的领导者提供指导。这些领导人经常面临困难问题，例如如何调和整个网络中相互冲突的道德方法，如何确保实验室领导和指导符合道德和尊重道德，如何创建解决争端的全网络程序，以及如何建立重视包容性和多样性的网络文化。网络领导者还面临着在建立社区和利益相关者关系、确保负责任的商业化以及确保整个研究网络履行道德责任方面的挑战，例如与人类参与者进行负责任的研究(RCR)、在研究中合乎道德地对待动物以及避免利益冲突。网络伦理学项目将使用三部分方法，建立在NSF生物系统保护先进技术ERC(ATP-Bio)的基础上。研究1将确定应在复杂的研究网络一级指导道德和研究报告的关键价值观花名册。方法将包括文献回顾和分析，以及修改后的德尔福流程，以支持ATP-Bio的伦理和公共政策小组的伦理领导机构和RCR之间的共识。研究2将开发一种调查评估工具，以评估整个网络中对关键价值的各种方法，以调和差异。开发工具的方法将包括对ATP-Bio研究人员进行半结构化访谈，对结果进行定性分析，对调查进行试点测试，以及在整个ATP-Bio网络中管理调查工具。研究3将开发教育案例研究，供复杂的研究网络使用，以促进网络一级的伦理和区域合作伙伴关系。为了开发这些案例研究，网络伦理团队将从研究2的投入和研究网络中嵌入的道德参与中收集候选案例。该团队将选择阐明研究1和研究2中确定的关键网络伦理和RCR价值观的案例，并在ATP-Bio研讨会中对案例进行试点以完善它们。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力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 NetEthics project will make a major advance in the responsible conduct of large, complex engineering research projects such as NSF-funded Engineering Research Centers (ERCs). Engineering research increasingly involves big, multidisciplinary teams networked across multiple universities and other institutions to develop new technologies. However, tools to help these teams conduct research ethically and develop technologies for societal benefit are lacking. Instead, current research ethics and tools tend to focus either on the responsibilities of individual researchers or the broad societal issues that the new technology will raise. These two ends of the spectrum – the micro level of the individual and the macro level of overall impacts -- leave a troubling gap in the middle by offering little guidance to the leaders of complex research networks. Those leaders regularly face difficult issues such as how to reconcile conflicting ethical approaches across the network, how to ensure ethical and respectful laboratory leadership and mentoring, how to create network-wide processes for resolving disputes, and how to build a network culture valuing inclusion and diversity. Network leaders also face challenges in building community and stakeholder relationships, ensuring responsible commercialization, and making sure that the entire research network fulfills ethical responsibilities such as responsible conduct of research (RCR) with human participants, ethical treatment of animals in research, and avoiding conflicts of interest. The NetEthics project will use a three-part approach, building on the NSF ERC for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-Bio). Study 1 will identify the roster of key values that should guide ethics and RCR at the level of a complex research network. Methods will include literature review and analysis, plus a modified Delphi process to support consensus among ATP-Bio’s Ethics & Public Policy Panel of leading authorities on ethics and RCR. Study 2 will develop a survey assessment tool to assess the range of approaches to key values across a network to reconcile differences. Methods to develop the tool will include semi-structured interviews of ATP-Bio researchers with qualitative analysis of resulting transcripts, pilot testing of the survey, and administration of the survey tool across the ATP-Bio network. Study 3 will develop educational case studies for use by complex research networks to advance ethics and RCR at the network level. To develop those case studies the NetEthics team will collect candidate cases from Study 2 inputs and embedded ethics engagement in the research network. The team will select cases that illuminate the key network ethics and RCR values identified in Studies 1 and 2, and pilot the cases in ATP-Bio workshops to refine them.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.