How to integrate ethics into your project proposal

If you're writing a proposal for a project on emerging technologies, you should consider the socio-ethical implications of your research. Miltos Ladikas, senior research fellow in the University of Central Lancashire’s Centre for Professional Ethics, explains how to do this.

Ladikas’s top tips

• Bring in social scientists to help you consider the social, ethical and economic implications of your research.
• Don’t ignore public perceptions of your technology.
• Incorporate a ‘work package’ in your proposal to look at the socio-ethical implications of your research.

In the ethical reviews I carry out for the European Commission and the European Research Council, I see a lot of project proposals for emerging technologies. For technologies such as nanotechnology and synthetic biology, there’s still a big gap in researchers’ understanding of how to consider socio-ethical implications.