Ethics

The group has built up core expertise in research ethics and responsible research and innovation through its work at the intersection between digital technologies and people. We believe that at times when digital technologies reach into every aspect of modern life, it is key to critically reflect on the ethical and moral basis by which our research is guided. In line with the leitmotiv of TU Wien - Technik für Menschen - we seek to raise awareness amongst technologists for the social impacts of their work and their responsibilities towards society.

All research impacts in one way or another on people, whether they are participants in a study, users of a system or simply on ourselves as the ones who conduct the work. Ethics is concerned about the wellbeing of these people and society as a whole. Ethical issues can range from protecting the privacy of participants to considering the psychological harm for researchers or critically reflecting on possible unintended uses of research results by others.

Generally, there are two aspects of ethics which increasingly get intertwined:

• Research Ethics is concerned about how we conduct our research in an ethically appropriate way.
• Responsible Research is bigger in scope and includes questions about the impacts of science on society and the environment.

We strongly recommend students and researchers interested in ethics to make use of the resources provided by the TU Wien Research Ethics Committee. In addition to those rather in-depth resources, we offer here our own ethics introductions we use in courses and projects:

• Core Principles - a set of core ethics principles to observe when doing research that involves humans
• Quick Self Check - a set of questions that can help to assess whether your research is ethically sensitive
• Ethics Document Template - a template for writing up an ethics statement