Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
FACULTY OF OTHER
Overview
Trust
Meanings of Integrity and Ethics
Themes in Ethics in Engineering Research
Balancing Risks and Benefits
Moral Values Embedded in Engineering
Integrity in Engineering Research
Environmental Impact of Research
Social Consequences
Answer
1) Doctors
2) Academics
Why is this relevant?
Membership of a trusted profession and position of trust
generates special responsibilities.
Medical professionals are in an analogous position.
Engineering researchers are experts on risk and potential
harms and benefits of e.g. technological developments
(Incidentally Estate Agents and Lawyers came last)
Personal Integrity in
Engineering Research
What does personal integrity in engineering research amount
to?
The classical concept of integrity in research is a given!
Accepting and sharing responsibility for the work;
Imaginatively foreseeing risks and possible harms;
Conscientiously monitoring projects;
Alerting others of potential harms to enable them to give
informed consent to risks;
Combining economic growth, social justice and
environmental care
Conflicts of Interest
Higher education institutions are under increasing economic
pressures.
Increasingly researchers are encouraged to seek financial
ties, and businesses are keen to utilise the expertise that HEIs
can bring to benefit society and economy.
This commercialisation of research can lead to creative
partnerships.
But it also brings the risk of the distortion of objective
judgement in terms of secrecy, conflicts of interests and
manipulation of research results.
A Relevant Statistic
To demonstrate how this can affect research results look at this
statistic:
94% of researchers with ties to the tobacco industry found no
harmful effects when they studied second-hand smoke,
13% with no such ties reported such results (Bok, 2003)
Those with sponsorship are 7 times less likely to report harmful
effects of second-hand smoke.
Remember: it is not just what is reported;
it is also what is not reported!