The RRI Challenge

5Ethics and the RRI Promise

5.1. Ethics in the EU governance of RTD: achievements, problems and challenges

In the previous chapter, we briefly examined the features of the “ethics” key that is advanced within the implementation of RRI. We indicated the three main points of reference when examining the acceptability of a proposed research and innovation process and its eventual marketable products. First, it is the EU normative orientation towards fundamental rights, agreed and advanced as a legal obligation with the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 and inscribed in the provisions of the EUFRC and ECHR. Then, acceptability entails compliance with the existing legal normative framework composed of national, European and international laws. Last but not least, vigilance on ethics in RDT cannot omit what has traditionally been regarded as standards of research integrity. They pertain to research conduct for ensuring the quality and reliability of the research results and treat questions such as plagiarism, falsification of data and misinterpretation of results.

In this section, I will focus on two very important manifestations of the integration of ethics as expertise in EU governance of RTD – as policy advice and as assessment of research projects (Ethics Appraisal). The way ethics is being activated on those two levels greatly influences the way it is being incorporated within the actual work of the research projects. And although the RRI community often laments the insufficiency of the ...