Ethics Governance System for RRI in Higher Education, Funding and Research Centres

Ethics Governance System for RRI in Higher Education, Funding and Research Centres

The Objective of Ethna System is to develop and implement an Ethics Governance System for grounding good practices in RRI (ETHNA System) in Higher Education, Funding and Research Centres (HEFRCs). The Project will implement and validate a new formal organizational structure within the management structure in 6 different HERCs of the consortium from 6 countries and 3 type of contexts: 2 universities, 2 funding research centres and 2 technological parks in ES, NO, EE, BG, AT and PT. The ETHNA System is composed by an Ethna office (integrity office) and 4 tools and work methodologies for RRI (ethical code, ethics committee, ethical hotline and process indicators to report) that implied institutional changes to respond to ethical challenges that HEFRCs are facing in EU context nowadays in its R&I activities. The institutional changes will be sustainable beyond the lifetime of the project funding because will be implemented and institutionalised in the HEFRCs management structures throughout the Ethna office. A Sustainability Plan will be developed to maximise the impact during 5 years after the end of the project. Therefore, the development of the project will involve a mutual learning among the consortium partners which have different level of expertise and knowledge in the five dimensions of RRI (research ethics and integrity, gender equality, open science, citizen’s engagement). Consortia will contribute to 22 MoRRI indicators and 7 SDG goals (16 targets). GOV2 and GOV3 indicators are particularly focused with KPI project indicators. The process to define ETHNA System is based on Quadruple Helix Mode (QHM) where the involvement of all stakeholders in R&I and the implementation of the ETHNA System and its institutionalization require a sustainable engagement with citizens and society as a whole. Moreover, ETHNA System includes the evaluation of the activities in order to communicate with transparency and publicity its achievements and points of improvement.