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

各国政府目前在危机时期没有遵循自己的道德建议，我们希望找出原因，这对政策决策意味着什么，以及最终如何影响公民的结果。新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19，即2019冠状病毒病）大流行将这些问题提了出来。各国政府的战略、公共辩论和公共卫生成果大不相同。我们将研究道德咨询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，在塑造这些国际差异，使用案例研究方法比较英国，德国和澳大利亚。未来如何组织政府道德咨询，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反应能力？2021年10月，英国独立的纳菲尔德生物伦理理事会开始调查英国伦理咨询的“生态系统”，而德国的主要伦理学家强调，只有通过考虑新的制度安排，才能从大流行中吸取关键的政府经验教训。澳大利亚直到最近才制定了一个道德框架，以便在大流行病期间为政府决策提供信息。我们调查的相似性和差异的机构组织的道德咨询，在这3种情况下。我们的项目调查：1。如何在制度上组织向不同国家政府提供道德咨询？2.在伦理咨询机构和公共话语中，问题何时变得“伦理”？3.政府和决策者在危机情况下如何使用和/或不使用道德操守咨询意见？4.如何支持政策制定者和政府机构掌握道德专业知识？自新型冠状病毒疫情爆发以来，有关其社会、文化、经济、政治及个人影响的社会科学研究迅速扩展。这种研究的性质是迅速和反应迅速的，在某些情况下改变了研究的格局，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。对专门基于道德知识和专门知识的咨询意见的制定、组织和影响的研究关注较少。该项目将是第一个提供关于3个不同国家背景下道德咨询机构组织的新经验数据的项目。我们将提供国际伦理专业知识的争议性质的新分析，并响应社会科学家的呼吁，制定一个新的研究议程，为政策学习过程提供信息。大多数现有的研究涉及不同政府对流行病带来的多重伦理挑战的政策反应的“前台”。影响途径：除了产生学术成果（1本书、3篇论文、会议演讲、通过研究团队的职业发展培养研究能力）外，研究结果还将与伦理顾问、伦理机构、政策制定者和公众相关。该研究将支持组织战略，沟通渠道，反思实践，决策和公开辩论。我们将通过纳菲尔德理事会、德国伦理理事会、伦理中心（澳大利亚）和国际科学建议网络（INGSA）定期撰写博客文章和4份政策简报。我们将开发适合每个国家的公务员培训资源。这将是一系列4x 2小时的讲习班和逐步培训指南，遵循PI Pykett制定的格式，通过INGSA传播。这项工作得益于纳菲尔德生物伦理理事会在开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.