Ensuring ethical research in a multi partner project

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Authors:  

Dr Hayley Watson | Director, Sociotech Innovation

Date: 11 October 2017

There is a strong need for clear ethical guidelines and monitoring practices within European projects as we are moving towards a Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) environment. We, at Trilateral, have in-depth understanding of RRI and research ethics and can help ensure ethical conduct within multi-partner project.

Our expertise

In combination with our expertise in innovation management and technology development, our knowledge of research ethics within multi-partner projects makes Trilateral an ideal partner to ensure that the project adheres to European and national principles on ethics in research and innovation.

Trilateral, currently actively manages research ethics within several research projects. This involves developing a research ethics protocol by liaising with partners to identify potential ethical considerations, monitoring ethical conduct and reporting to the European Commission.

Our work

Through a full understanding of the European perspective on research ethics, as well as adherence to national regulations, Trilateral can identify and respond to ethical challenges ensuring that appropriate measures are in place.

To put this into context, Trilateral is working with technical partners and law enforcement agencies to understand the potential ethical challenges that may occur throughout the project DANTE – Detecting and analysing terrorist-related online contents and financing activities.

DANTE logo 1

Challenges may range from ethical considerations around informed consent when conducting interviews, workshops and pilots with external stakeholders, to ensuring the safety of the researchers involved in the project, especially around a sensitive topic such as radicalisation, propaganda and terrorism.

For instance, long-term exposure to violent video content for video analytics purposes can have a harmful impact on those involved. As a result, we identify and implement those measures to ensure that researchers are not at risk; such as controlled length of time for analytical efforts and secure research settings. We also identify any ethical issues in relation to other human participants in the project, e.g., interview respondents and workshop participants.

Contact us

Such a service requires expertise in research ethics in a multi-disciplinary environment and an in-depth understanding of complex ethical issues that may arise in projects, especially those who deal with new ICTs capabilities for big data collection and analytics.

For more information on this research area please contact our team.

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