Prof. Doris Schroeder and Dr Nadia Kornioti, UCLan Cyprus
In June 2023, 50 PREPARED members and distinguished invite-only guests travelled to Paris for a 3-day conference. We were lucky enough to be hosted at the UNESCO headquarters by Chief of Bioethics Dr Dafna Feinholz and her very efficient staff — a special thanks to Raji Pajany.
Engaged and motivated discussions took place during the main sessions, and almost as much during the breaks. Topics of discussion included:
- Can the silos of research ethics and research integrity be bridged?
- Can research be accelerated whilst maintaining high ethical standards?
- Which ethical values are important in guiding research during crisis?
- How can groups who suffered disproportionally during COVID-19, including researchers, be better protected during the next pandemic?
- How can researchers reach policy makers?
- How can research become less risky for marginalized populations?
.
.
In many of the sessions, an emphasis was placed on listening to the heightened difficulties of marginalized populations.
.
Ethical research cannot afford to leave the least advantaged behind. It must make a special effort to contribute solutions to their problems.
.
Representatives of marginalized populations from Kenya and South Africa were able to shed light on research during COVID-19. They also engaged on the question of whether “protective” exclusion from research is worse than the risks taken by participating in research. As indigenous San leader Collin Louw emphasised:
.
“We should not be blocked from research because we are called vulnerable, we are made vulnerable by the way you conduct research.”
.
.
We have two years to complete our work and build a moral framework for research ethics and integrity during global crisis, but early indications are that the following will be essential:
- Think smart – Build a short ethics code that is easy to understand and allows for local solutions.
- Think bottom-up – Take precarious life situations of all those who contribute to research into consideration.
- Think big picture – Link PREPARED work to the big ethics questions that cannot be resolved by researchers alone but that cannot be ignored; questions about vaccine distribution, miscommunication and distrust, extremely under resourced health services, etc.
- Think global – Build output that is not Eurocentric and that can have impact globally.
.
Find out more in our report, featuring beautiful photos by our Nairobi photographer Iddah Akinyi.
.
