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

NetEthics项目将在负责任地开展大型复杂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（ERC）。工程研究越来越多地涉及跨多所大学和其他机构联网的大型多学科团队，以开发新技术。然而，缺乏帮助这些团队进行道德研究和开发社会效益技术的工具。相反，目前的研究伦理和工具往往侧重于个人研究人员的责任或新技术将引起的广泛社会问题。光谱的这两端-个人的微观层面和整体影响的宏观层面-在中间留下了一个令人不安的缺口，因为它对复杂研究网络的领导者几乎没有提供任何指导。这些领导人经常面临困难的问题，如如何协调整个网络相互冲突的道德方法，如何确保道德和尊重实验室的领导和指导，如何创建解决争端的网络范围内的进程，以及如何建立一个重视包容性和多样性的网络文化。网络领导者还面临着建立社区和利益相关者关系的挑战，确保负责任的商业化，并确保整个研究网络履行道德责任，例如对人类参与者进行负责任的研究（RCR），在研究中道德对待动物，以及避免利益冲突。NetEthics项目将采用一种由三部分组成的方法，建立在NSF ERC的生物系统保存先进技术（ATP-Bio）的基础上。第一项研究将确定在一个复杂的研究网络层面指导伦理和RCR的关键价值观。方法将包括文献回顾和分析，加上修改后的德尔菲过程，以支持ATP生物伦理公共政策小组的道德和RCR领导当局之间的共识。研究2将开发一个调查评估工具，以评估整个网络为调和差异而对关键价值观采取的各种办法。开发该工具的方法将包括对ATP-Bio研究人员进行半结构化访谈，对所产生的成绩单进行定性分析，对调查进行试点测试，以及在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，以促进网络层面的伦理和RCR。为了开发这些案例研究，NetEthics团队将从研究2输入中收集候选案例，并在研究网络中嵌入伦理参与。该团队将选择案例，阐明研究1和2中确定的关键网络伦理和RCR价值观，并在ATP生物研讨会上试点案例，以完善它们。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

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.