NetEthics Project Will Develop Tools to Advance Research Ethics for Large, Networked Team Science

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded a groundbreaking 2-year project on NetEthics: Building Tools & Training to Advance Responsible Conduct in Complex Research Networks Pioneering Novel Technologies. The project team is led by Consortium Chair Susan Wolf and includes Profs. Gillian Roehrig, Keisha Varma, Timothy Pruett (all University of Minnesota) and Korkut Uygun (Massachusetts General Hospital). Innovative engineering research increasingly relies on large, multidisciplinary research networks spread across multiple institutions. Unfortunately, tools to help these networks identify and address ethical challenges are largely lacking, as most research ethics and responsible conduct of research (RCR) tools focus on either the micro level of individual researchers or the macro level of societal issues raised by new technologies. The NetEthics project will systematically identify key values to guide network ethics and RCR, and will develop training materials. NetEthics will collaborate with the NSF-funded Engineering Research Center (ERC) for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-Bio^SM), a large, multidisciplinary and multi-institutional ERC.