Ethics and Expertise Beyond Times of Crisis: Learning from international varieties of ethics advice

政府目前在危机时期没有遵循自己的道德建议，我们想找出原因，这对政策决策意味着什么，最终，这如何影响公民的结果。2019冠状病毒病大流行使这些问题凸显出来。国家政府战略、公共辩论和公共卫生成果差别很大。我们将研究道德建议在危机管理过程中的具体作用，导航专家知识，建立组织网络和政策学习，以形成这些国际差异，使用案例研究方法来比较英国，德国和澳大利亚。未来政府如何组织道德咨询，以提高机构能力和灵活性、战略思维、多元化的专业知识形式，以及对不同公众的回应？2021年10月，英国独立的纳菲尔德生物伦理委员会开始调查英国伦理建议的“生态系统”，德国的主要伦理学家强调，只有通过考虑新的制度安排，政府才能从大流行中吸取关键教训。澳大利亚直到最近才制定了一个道德框架，以便在疫情期间为政府决策提供信息。在这三种情况下，我们调查了机构组织的道德咨询的异同。我们的项目调查：1；向不同国家政府提供道德建议的制度是如何组织的？什么时候问题在伦理咨询机构和公共话语中变得“伦理”？在危机情况下，政府和政策制定者如何使用和/或不使用道德建议？如何支持决策者和政府机构驾驭伦理专业知识？自新冠肺炎疫情爆发以来，社会科学研究迅速扩大，研究其对社会、文化、经济、政治和个人的影响。这种研究的性质迅速而迅速，在某些情况下改变了研究格局，越来越多地关注科学与政策之间的关系，以及学术建议、专业知识、公众舆论和政府战略之间的关系。很少有人关注专门基于道德知识和专业知识的建议的发展、组织和影响的研究。该项目将首次提供关于三个不同国家背景下伦理咨询机构组织的新经验数据。我们将对国际上有争议的伦理专家性质提供新的分析，并响应社会科学家的呼吁，制定新的研究议程，为政策学习过程提供信息。大多数现有研究涉及不同政府对大流行带来的多重伦理挑战的政策反应的“前台”。我们的研究旨在揭示道德建议的“后台”过程。产生影响的途径：除了产生学术成果（1本书，3篇论文，会议报告，通过研究团队的职业发展提高研究能力）外，研究结果将与伦理顾问，伦理团体，政策制定者和公众相关。这项研究将支持组织战略、沟通渠道、反思实践、决策和公众辩论。我们将通过纳菲尔德委员会、德国伦理委员会、澳大利亚伦理中心和国际科学咨询网络（INGSA）发布定期博客文章和4份政策简报。我们将开发适合各国的公务员培训资源。这将是一系列4 × 2小时的讲习班和逐步培训指南，遵循PI Pykett开发的格式，并通过INGSA传播。这项工作得益于纳菲尔德生物伦理委员会在发展类似培训方面的既定经验。

Governments are not currently following their own ethical advice during times of crisis, and we want to find out why, what this means for policy decision-making and ultimately, how this influences outcomes for citizens. The Covid-19 pandemic has brought these questions to the fore. National government strategies, public debate and public health outcomes have varied substantially. We will examine the specific role of ethics advice in processes of crisis management, navigating expert knowledge, building organisational networks and policy learning in shaping these international differences, using a case study method to compare UK, Germany and Australia. How can government ethics advice be organised in the future to improve institutional capacity and agility, strategic thinking, pluralistic forms of expertise, and responsiveness to diverse publics?In October 2021, the UK's independent Nuffield Council on Bioethics began to survey the 'ecosystems' of ethics advice in the UK, and leading ethicists in Germany have highlighted that key governmental lessons from the pandemic will only be learnt through considering new institutional arrangements. Australia only very recently developed an ethics framework to inform government decision-making during the pandemic. We investigate the similarities and differences between the institutional organisation of ethics advice in these 3 cases. Our project investigates:1. How is ethics advice provided to different national governments organised institutionally?2. When do issues become 'ethical' in ethical advisory institutions and public discourse?3. How is ethics advice used and/or not used by governments and policy makers in crisis situations?4. How can policy-makers and government institutions be supported in navigating ethical expertise? Since the outbreak of the Covid pandemic, there has been a rapid expansion of social science research on its societal, cultural, economic, political and personal impacts. The nature of this research has been rapid and responsive, and in some cases have changed the research landscape, with ever more attention paid to the relationship between science and policy, and between academic advice, expertise, public opinion and government strategy. Less attention has been paid to researching the development, organisation and impact of advice which is based specifically on ethical knowledge and expertise. This project will be the first to provide new empirical data on the institutional organisation of ethics advice across 3 different national contexts. We will provide new analysis of the contested nature of ethical expertise internationally, and respond to calls from social scientists to develop a new research agenda to inform policy learning processes. Most existing research deals with the 'frontstage' of different governments' policy responses to the multiple ethical challenges posed by the pandemic. Our research aims to shed light on the 'backstage' processes of ethical advice.Pathways to Impact:As well as producing academic outputs (1 book, 3 papers, conference presentations, research capacity through career development of research team), findings will be relevant to ethics advisors, ethics bodies, policy makers and the general public. The research will support organisational strategies, lines of communication, reflective practices, decision-making, and public debate. We will produce regular blog articles and 4 policy briefs disseminated through Nuffield Council, German Ethics Council, The Ethics Centre (Australia), and through the International Network for Science Advices (INGSA). We will develop a training resource for civil servants tailored to each country. This will be a series of 4x 2 hour workshops and step-by-step training guidelines, following a format developed by PI Pykett which was disseminated via INGSA. This work benefits from the established experience of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in developing similar kinds of training.