Ethics Consultation
Coronavirus Pandemic
There are many ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic is raising new and challenging ethical issues. If you have questions regarding research ethics, clinical ethics, or bioethics, please feel free to contact us and we will do our best to find resources that might help.
Case of the Month
The current model for funding research throughout the world is based on a highly competitive system of short-term (5 years at most) funding. A case has been made that this model "puts pressure on labs to publish a lot of papers, breeds conflicts of interest, and encourages scientists to overhype their work." As noted in a commentary in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: "The current system is in perpetual disequilibrium, because it will inevitably generate an ever-increasing supply of scientists vying for a finite set of research resources and employment opportunities."
- Are these concerns valid for your area of research or scholarship?
- If not, why not?
- If yes, what might be done to reap the gains of high quality research while diminishing the negative outcomes?