Social Responsibility

Learning objectives and introduction
Key issues
Regulations and guidelines
Case studies
Resources

Social Responsibility

Upholding integrity

All researchers have a responsibility not only to science but also to society. This responsibility manifests itself in several ways. First, at a basic level, researchers must maintain scientific integrity, to ensure that the results they produce are reliable and can be used with confidence by the society that ultimately funds them. Fabrication and falsification of results are not only dishonest behaviours, they also compromise the integrity of science itself, potentially contaminating future research endeavours, wasting resources and public trust. That public trust is not only an output of responsible research, it can also act as an input to societal relevance as it can be a requirement for influence and social value as wielded by researchers.

In this section, we will first discuss the relevance of relevance as an input in research – articulating relevance as a required characteristic of research. Second, we will discuss the relevance of relevance as a social characteristic of practitioners and institutes.

Doing relevant research

Next to doing research responsibly in the sense that the researcher adheres to normative procedures and protocols, a second aspect of social responsibility is doing research that is relevant. Even if a research project is perfectly designed, has excellent methodology, and is conducted with great rigour resulting in superb analysis and reporting, it might be useless if the research question itself is irrelevant or the problem it addressed has no social or scientific relevance. Research integrity consists not only in designing and conducting research to certain standards, but also in identifying relevant research questions.

What does relevant mean in this context? This question can be answered in different ways, but essentially it means that the research must have some potential impact on society - even if by reinforcing or improving the body of scientific knowledge which will ultimately benefit society rather than by directly affecting society.1 For example, a study that aims to reproduce the results of a previous study may not yield novel results, but will reinforce the findings of the earlier study, improving the evidence base for society. The relevance requirement has gained greater prominence in recent years, being mentioned in more guidelines and even featuring in some national legislation (the Swiss Human Research Act states that “research on human beings can take place only if the scientific question concerned is relevant for one of the following domains: understanding of human diseases; the structure and functioning of the human body; and public health”. (Swiss Federal Government. Human Research Act). Although not specifically written in this context, research and writing on the ‘new production of knowledge’ can be read this way too (see NPoK and RTS).

Relevance is not only relevant in terms of yielding beneficial results. Irrelevant research also wastes the resources invested in it. It has been argued, for example, that it is wasteful to conduct further research on homeopathy because the evidence that it is ineffective beyond a placebo effect is overwhelming. Research without relevance is also detrimental to any human or animal participants; at best, their time is wasted, and at worst, their lives may be lost, depending on the nature of the research. Harming humans and animals in the course of relevant research is already unfortunate, but loss of life in pursuit of irrelevant aims is deeply unethical (the flip side of this is another type of relevance: in some research (notably clinical trials), participants can benefit directly from the research so it is relevant in that sense). Note that a study can also be rendered irrelevant by bad methodology even if the research question is relevant. If a study has too few participants for statistical power, its results will not be valid, and will thus be irrelevant. But reports of such studies are sometimes published, meaning that papers that are fundamentally flawed and whose results are thus irrelevant contaminate the scientific record, skewing the knowledge base and allowing methodology experts such as John Ioannidis to argue that most published research findings are false.

Relevance as a social attribute

Next to relevance being a characteristic of research processes and research outputs, relevance is also a perceived quality, attributed to institutes and individuals by various publics. To be perceived as relevant in a debate, to be perceived as a legitimate voice, a legitimate expert or a legitimate proxy to speak on behalf of others, conveys power.

Acting responsibly, adhering to research integrity, or at least the perception of it, translates indirectly into credibility. In the words of Onora O’Neill, trustworthiness requires reliability, honesty and competence. In the context of research and scientific situations, the honesty and reliability requirements are best caught by the research integrity label (although competence is of interest too, see below), whereas research ethics is spread across all three. To earn credibility, or to become trustworthy, means to build one’s relevance. Note that this process can take place on multiple levels. Individual researchers build their credibility, trustworthiness and relevance as much as institutions do – ranging from local colleges to global organisations such as the WHO. Perceived deviant behaviour, meaning breaks the norms and values as recognised elements of research integrity, individual or institutional, translates into a loss of relevance.

Relevance as a social attribute is, albeit different from the ones mentioned above, a resource that can be wasted. Committing fraud, overstepping one’s epistemic domain, or, for institutions, appearing either institutionally corrupt, or hosting a researcher who has committed fraud, will diminish one’s capacity to yield desirable change – relevance wasted.

Dual use of research

More concretely, another issue arises with respect to relevance. It is dual use of research results, an issue often associated with research ethics, but also with clear research integrity connotations. Research must be relevant, but researchers must also ensure that they have considered its potential relevance in terms of misuse of their findings. Dual use was originally defined as any technology that can be used for both peaceful and military means, but in the context or research integrity it refers primary to any misuse of knowledge, data or scientific discoveries (including technology). In the United States Dual Use Research of Concern is defined as “life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security.”

For example, one of the main worries in dual use is that terrorists could use new to engineer bioweapons. However, dual use issues are not limited to life science research. Interview data about smoking habits could be obtained with the intention of developing new strategies to help people stop smoking, but the same results could be used by tobacco companies to target advertising designed to increase smoking rates. Dual use concerns also highlight a tension between two different themes in research integrity. Open data is regarded as an important aspect of integrity because of the need for transparency and reproducibility. But making all raw data available increases the risk of unethical dual use occurring. All researchers have a responsibility to anticipate and take measures to prevent any dual use of their findings.

Limits of competence

Revisiting O’Neill’s requirement for trustworthiness (reliability, competence, honesty) also presents us with another questionable behaviour researchers may engage in, perhaps unknowingly. Whereas transgressions on the honesty requirement very obviously translates into a loss of trustworthiness or credibility, transgressions of the other requirements can also do so in perhaps unexpected ways. To do unreliable incompetent science renders, as argued above, even the most relevant science irrelevant. However, limits of competence are not in themselves limited to data collection or experimental work. Limits of competence are also at play when researchers take public stage in the context of research communication or as expert witnesses or expert commenters. Consider, for instance, the status of the so-called prominent rock-star scientists, including people such as Brian Cox or Neill deGrasse Tyson. They are highly sought after as public figures speaking with authority on scientific issues as they present themselves as current events. They are, by training a particle physicist and an astrophysicist. Yet routinely they are asked to provide (very public and very powerful) comments on issues varying from vaccination to climate change and from nutrition to science policy. They are overstepping the epistemic culture they are part of, reaching beyond the limits of their competence, and jeopardizing their trustworthiness.

Of course, trustworthiness and the public relevance that flows from this, is a perceived quality. The consequence of this is that to many, Cox and deGrasse Tyson are (a) doing nothing wrong and (b) their relevance as public intellectuals remain unscathed. Similarly, the opposite positions exist. From a research integrity standpoint, limits to one’s competence impose limits on how one ought to present our expertise – individuals and institutes alike.

1) The principle of relevance refers also to the basic principle of Research Ethics, i.e. the principle requiring that any research project must have potential to produce social, applied or scientific merit. For example, recently updated CIOMS guidelines refer to the principle of social value in its Guideline 1.

Reference

Ioannidis, JPA. Why Most Published Research Findings Are False. PLOS Medicine (2005) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124.

Swiss Federal Government. Human Research Act. (Loi fédérale relative à la recherche sur l’être humain.) http://www.bag.admin.ch/themen/medizin/00701/00702/07558/index.html?lang...

Leaning objectives

conceptualizing social responsibility in research through the concepts of relevance and trustworthiness.
Identifying how research integrity and research ethics boards and committee members might assess relevance and trustworthiness in the research (cases or review requests) that they encounter.

Introduction

Social responsibility in research has evolved through a focus on science (including social sciences and humanities) for society with an emphasis on democratizing processes to science with society emphasizing the institutionalization of processes for reflection and anticipation in research and innovation (cf. Owen & al., 2012).

We approach social responsibility through the concept of relevance, namely the relevance

as an input in research
as a social characteristic of practitioners and institutes

As part of the discussion on responsibility and relevance, the material also addresses questions on dual use of research as well as limits and limitations of researcher competence.

While the following set of questions are intended for risk assessment of dual use of the research (Working Group Dual Use of the Flemish Interuniversity Council, 2017), they may be helpful also more generally for reviewers of research plans and proposals in considering how the proposed research deals with social and societal responsibility:

“What would happen if the research results ended up in the wrong hands?
Could the research results (materials/methods/technologies and knowledge) harm people, animals or the environment if modified or enhanced?
Could the research results serve any purposes other than the intended ones? If so, would that be unethical?”

(Working Group Dual Use of the Flemish Interuniversity Council, 2017, p. 8)

References

Owen, R., Macnaghten, P., & Stilgoe J. (2012). Responsible research and innovation: From science in society to science for society, with society. Science and Public Policy, 39, 751–760.

Working Group Dual Use of the Flemish Interuniversity Council, Imec and the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology (October 2017). Guidelines for researchers on dual use and misuse of research. Flemish Interuniversity Council, Imec, Flanders Institute for Biotechnology.

Cases and Questions - Social responsibility

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Social sciences researchers are doing research on a topic that many consider to be highly important for society, namely people on social welfare and their experiences of encounters with other people and with authorities. The researchers explicitly promise the research participants to destroy identifying data after the project ends.

The researchers, however, do not destroy the identifying data, and five years after the initial data collection, they decide to do a follow-up. It would be interesting know whether the individuals they have interviewed are better or worse off now. Have their lives change? Many had dreams and hopes? Have they been able to fulfil any of these? They recall a young mother who was about to have her first child, and worried about how she will be able to take of the child when living off welfare. Where is she and her child now? The researchers think this follow-up study would send a strong signal to society and politicians. The first study already gained quite a bit of attention in media, so they feel that there is a need for this kind of research and for informing decision-makers about how people actually live their lives under tough conditions.

The researchers have approached the institutional review board for an ethics review. Now, the review board has a decision to make.

Question 1

- Is the ethics review board in position to provide approval to carry on this societally important study, or does the fact of breaking the initial promise of destroying identifying data weigh heavier?

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