Ethics among Physicists in Cross-National Perspective

这项研究试图找出美国、中国和英国的物理学家如何处理围绕研究诚信及其与行业关系的伦理问题。主要数据收集将包括225次访谈，对在三个国家的研究型大学或研究所工作的处于职业生涯不同阶段的物理学家进行抽样。我们会问：物理学家如何看待研究诚信和不当行为的意义？当研究不当行为发生时，在什么情况下有义务采取行动？工业在研究中扮演的角色有哪些潜在的利益冲突(如果有的话)？无国界科学界的理想是否与研究的民族性相一致，这种关系是否与物理学家的研究完整性问题有关？物理学家是否认为他们所接受的伦理培训(如果他们所接受的话)与他们面临的伦理问题有关？这项研究开始填补现有数据的空白，这些数据涉及科学家如何理解与科学有关的伦理问题，以及这些观点在地方和国家背景下的不同之处。学术价值：这项研究将具体探索科学、伦理和社会之间的关系，以补充最近在国家和国际背景下对科学的研究。现有的实验室研究是理解科学家如何看待伦理学的基础，但很少有人广泛考察科学家？有自己的伦理观点。这项研究是一项基于访谈的横断面研究，而不是个案研究，这意味着它将补充现有的研究，同时显著扩展现有研究。这项研究将提供泛社区态度的快照，这些态度可以与自然科学社会科学研究提供的现有微观视角的丰富结合在一起。像我们这样的大型定性研究将有助于更好地理解物理学家如何看待和澄清什么是研究完整性以及研究和行业之间的适当关系。其他工作突出了科学家克服不确定性的不断变化的方式。社会学家曾经认为，科学家采用了条理清晰的规范--即官僚理性的方法--来克服对适当的科学行为的不确定性。但更仔细的研究表明，即使在现代研究领域的前沿(也许在这里尤其如此)，我们也发现，人们广泛呼吁有魅力的权威取消这种不确定性，或者至少将其排除在外。特别是在自然科学领域，研究往往涉及广泛的国际合作，了解研究完整性的不同方法如何有助于合作的成败是很重要的，但关于这一主题的研究很少。除了弥补这一知识差距，我们的研究结果将指导和推动不同国家背景下物理学家道德教育的具体变化。教育和更广泛的影响：研究结果将通过基于我们的结果的讲座、网站和出版物广泛传播，供学者(特别是伦理学界的学者)和普通受众使用。这项研究还将包括对本科生研究助理的广泛指导，研究结果的见解将被用于研究生水平的物理学生和科学政策学生的课程。特别是，公共政策研究所和合作公共政策研究所将为本科生和研究生提供与科学伦理和科学政策制定有关的培训，在此期间，学生将更好地了解科学家研究伦理的研究方法和社会科学方法。将根据我们的研究结果编制公共政策简报(中英文)，并用于与科学界和科学政策制定者互动，以展示不同的科学伦理方法(特别是研究诚信问题)如何影响国际科学合作。

This study seeks to find out how physicists in the United States, China, and the United Kingdom approach the ethical issues surrounding research integrity and their relationships with industry. The primary data collection will consist of 225 interviews with a sample of physicists at various stages of their careers who work in research universities or research institutes in the three national contexts. We will ask: How do physicists perceive the meaning of research integrity and misconduct? Under what conditions is one obliged to act when research misconduct has occurred? What are the potential conflicts of interest (if any) of industry's role in research? Is the ideal of a borderless scientific community consistent with the national character of research, and is this relationship relevant to issues of research integrity among physicists? Do physicists perceive the ethics training they receive (if they receive any) as relevant to the ethical issues they face? The study begins to fill the lacunae of data that exists on how scientists understand ethical issues in relation to science, and how such views differ across local and national contexts. Intellectual Merits: The research will specifically explore the relationships among science, ethics, and society in a way that complements recent studies of science in national and international contexts. Existing laboratory studies are foundational to understanding how scientists view ethics, yet few broadly examine scientists? own ethical views. The study is a cross-sectional interview-based study rather than a case study, meaning it will complement existing research while significantly expanding upon it. The research will provide a snapshot of pan-communal attitudes, which can be integrated at the aggregate with the wealth of existing microscale perspectives provided by social science studies of the natural sciences. A large qualitative study like ours will contribute to a better understanding of how physicists perceive and gain clarity on what constitutes research integrity and the appropriate relationship between research and industry. Other work highlights the constantly shifting ways scientists overcome uncertainty. Sociologists once thought scientists deployed well-articulated norms - i.e., a bureaucratic-rational approach - to overcome uncertainties about proper scientific conduct. But closer examination reveals that even at the forefront of modern research fields (and perhaps especially here), we find extensive appeals to charismatic authority to foreclose, or at least bracket, such uncertainties. In the natural sciences especially, where research often involves extensive international collaboration, it is important to understand how varying approaches to research integrity might contribute to the success or failure of collaborations, yet there is scant research on this topic. In addition to remedying this knowledge gap, the results of our research will guide and advance specific changes in ethics education for physicists in different national contexts.Educational and Broader Impact: Study findings will be widely disseminated via lectures based on our results, a website, and publications for both academics (particularly those in the ethics community) and general audiences. This study will also involve extensive mentoring of undergraduate research assistants, and insights from the research findings will be used in courses for graduate-level physics students and science policy students. In particular, the PI and co-PIs will provide undergraduates and graduate students training related to science ethics and the development of science policy, during which students will acquire a better understanding of research methods and social science approaches to studying ethics among scientists. Public policy briefs based on our findings will be created (in both English and Chinese) and used to interact with the scientific community and science policy makers in order to demonstrate how varying approaches to science ethics (especially issues of research integrity) might influence international scientific collaborations.