Research Ethics and integrity for the GREEN transition

Goal: RE4GREEN aims to help establishing an ethics and integrity framework for research and innovation activities in Europe, aligned with the goals of the European Green Deal for a sustainable economy and society. This means moving beyond the current understanding of research ethics towards a more holistic framework that besides the projection of research participants also encompasses environmental and climate issues.

Methods and products: RE4GREEN will employ a bottom-up approach, utilizing e.g. the social lab methodology to incorporate input from diverse stakeholders. The project aims to create operational guidelines, policy recommendations, and training materials for researchers, ethics experts, advisors, and Ethics Review Committees.

Background: A central pillar of the European Green Deal is to promote new technologies and sustainable solutions to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the EU by 2050. For this to succeed, there is a need for all sectors of society to adapt to global environmental and climate challenges. This includes developing a new ethics and integrity framework for research and innovation (R&I) that encompasses environmental and climate ethics. Besides the climate challenge, this framework must also be able address other current challenges, including the global biodiversity crisis.

Consortium: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Germany, coordinator); Eurec Office Gug (Germany); Trilateral Research Limited (Ireland); Universiteit Twente (Netherlands); Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH (Austria), Aarhus University (Denmark), Ethnicon Metsovion Polytechnion (Greece), Verein der Europäischen Bürgerwissenschaften (Germany), Korea University (Korea), Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (Spain), University of Cape Town (South Africa), Stitching VUMC (Netherlands), Women Engage for a Common Future E.V. (Germany), National University Corporation the University of Tokyo (Japan).

Funding: EU, HORIZON-WIDERA-2023-ERA-01

The project will run from 2024 to 2027