Beyond Research Ethics: Dialogues in Neuro-ICT Research
The increasing use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to help facilitate neuroscience adds a new level of complexity to the question of how ethical issues of such research can be identified and addressed. Current research ethics practice, based on ethics reviews by institutional review boards (IRB) and underpinned by ethical principlism, has been widely criticized. In this article, we develop an alternative way of approaching ethics in neuro-ICT research, based on discourse ethics, which implements Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) through dialogues. We draw on our work in Ethics Support, using the Human Brain Project (HBP) as empirical evidence of the viability of this approach. ; Author Contributions: BS led the development of the ethics support work package and processes, wrote the first draft of the article and coordinated the contributions. SA worked on legal review and data protection and was part of the ethics check process. BF led the data governance and was involved in compliance management. MG led the ethics rapporteur programme and the PORE process. WK led the ethics compliance process. IU led the ethics awareness work. All authors worked closely together on the work described in the article. All have contributed to the text related to their area of expertise and contributed to the overall article, including through reviews and revision of earlier drafts. Funding: This project/research has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation under the Specific Grant Agreement No. 720270 (HBP SGA1); No. 785907 (Human Brain Project SGA2) and under the Framework Partnership Agreement No. 650003 (HBP FPA). ; Human Brain Project