Research and Ethics

Today was the last day of the 3-day INN research conference. In the morning was Prof. Alistair Black's session on libraries, which he began with an interesting talk about the architecture of libraries. I used the opportunity of the presence of the students from Krems to have a few meetings with individuals, to discuss plans and progress.

In the afternoon then the session of the PRAXIS centre, which is led by Prof. Dave Webb. The afternoon ended with the scheduled debate between me and Phil Webber, about the importance of ethics in research. Each of us held a 20 min talk, outlining our views on this issue. Actually, we both spoke about slightly different things: while I addressed the basic philosophical issue behind this question from the point of view of the scientist, Phil addressed the issue from the point of view of the funding opportunities, which in his view were too much targetted towards commercial and military benefits rather than ecological and social. So we did not directly address each other's opinion, but after our statements we answered questions from the audience, and a vivid discussion arose.

As a PowerPoint junkie, I had of course prepared a set of "viewgraphs" (vugraphs) which are available for download.

Again an Ethics Reflection...

Once again I have let myself getting carried away - and getting involved in a highly controversial topic. But last week's news about the proposed boycott of the Israeli academia by the UCU (University and College Union) has prompted me to write another ethical reflection on our Leeds Met reflection web site. There is no official viewpoint of Leeds Met on this - the published reflection is purely my own personal opinion. The topic is highly controversial on serveral levels, and I already got a few replies to this reflection. As a consequence, there would be a debate / discussion held sometime this summer (or autumn) about this topic.

This is quite a nice thing here at Leeds Met: here are actively engaged members of the academic community, getting involved in numerous issues. The ethical reflections provide a great forum for discussion of these issues, and I have not seen such a forum at any other university in the UK (ok, I might have not yet looked thoroughly enough).

The issue is very much debatable, and people have strong opinions about it. So do I, and in fact I could voice my opinion much stronger than I had done in that reflection. But I respect the opinion of others, and I am looking forward to engage in any debate and discussion about this.