Framework for Responsible Research and Innovation in ICT

The Framework for Ethics in ICT project is the first attempt to take a holistic view of the ethical challenges posed by contemporary ICT research. The project has been constructed to engage researchers right across the spectrum of ICT research and to reach out to those other research disciplines and communities which use ICT. The motivating ethos of the project is one of engagement and community self-development. That is, the project seeks to facilitate the development of a common approach to the definition and resolution of ethical issues by the research community itself.

To achieve this objective, the project will undertake a number of lines of activity.

1. An Ethics Observatory will be created to hold the information gathered within the project and to disseminate best practice, promote recommendations and engage external communities. Central in the resources held by the Observatory will be curriculum development materials, a New Research Support Pack together with tailorable resources for use in undertaking ethical assessments.

2. The project will undertake a comprehensive baseline study of current issues, challenges and responses to them as perceived by ICT researchers. This baseline study will provide a description of the landscape of ICT from an ethical point of view and hence will identify the key issues, barriers and enablers.

3. The project will undertake a number of detailed case studies. These cases will be taken from across the ICT spectrum and will be chosen to reflect a range of issues and contexts. The findings from these case studies will be included within the repository and publicised by the Ethics Observatory.

4. A series of workshops will be held which will serve to introduce the community to the ethical challenges posed by ICT and some possible responses to them. The workshops will also enable the research community to review the progress of the project and final reports of the landscape study and the case studies.

To be fully effective, the framework which is developed will have to align to practices which take place further along the technology and product development chain. The project will engage with the professional bodies and key ICT lead companies to begin this process. It is also recognised that the changes sought by the project will need to be complemented by appropriate legislation and policy. The project will work through the Research Councils and the relevant professional bodies to engage relevant actors and stakeholders. On completion, the project will have:
a) created a vibrant network of researchers who share a common understanding of the complexities underlying ethical questions in ICT research;
b) provided a rich resource base for the community to access and use;
c) created an Ethics Observatory which is sustainable from a financial and research perspective; d) reached out to disciplines and communities who use and depend on ICT. It will have held the community set expectations for ethically responsible activities and helped frame appropriate legislation and policies.

The key objective of this project is to foster debate on, and the dissemination of, good practice regarding the ethical implications of innovations in ICT technologies. As this good practice becomes embedded in research, its effects will feed through to disciplines which use ICT technologies to support their own activities and companies which use ICT in their products. As a consequence, practices in each of these areas will have to be reviewed and aligned to the new ethical assessment and design processes. The development of the network has been structured to ensure the engagement and support of the entire range of these stakeholders.

To support researchers and the whole academic ICT community, the project intends to develop exemplar curriculum materials for undergraduate and postgraduate education and a New Researcher Support Pack. The project will use the case studies and the core members of the network to assemble and assess these materials and make them available through the ICT Ethics Observatory that will be developed in the project.

The introduction of ethical design processes in R&D together with appropriate amendments to corporate statements of business ethics and social responsibility indicated above should prevent the market introduction of ICT products and services likely to violate general social norms. This will foster greater acceptability and adoption of such innovation. As a consequence, the opportunity for companies to bring new services to market in the Digital Economy space and the collection and use of personal information in applied disciplines will be enhanced. However, inevitably despite these improvements, there will be a need for appropriate legislation and policy. The project will develop information dissemination activities to initiate activities in support of these specific outcomes.

The Observatory will develop a portal to its information repository and provide services for the research community and third parties. These services will demonstrate the business opportunities to be realised in providing ethical diagnosis and assessment, consultation on good practice, and so forth. This could, if taken up, represent a new service sector for the Digital Economy.