(CHANGER) CHAllenges and innovative chaNGes in research Ethics Reviews

Progetto finanziato dall’Unione Europea – Programma Horizon Europe
Grant Agreement n. 101131683
Durata: 36 months
Data di inizio: 01/01/2024
Sito ufficiale del progetto

La fiducia nella scienza e nella tecnologia, così come l’utilità e l’accettabilità dei loro risultati innovativi, dipende in modo cruciale dalle qualità etiche della ricerca. Le nuove tecnologie, la ricerca trasformativa e i nuovi attori della ricerca cambiano costantemente il campo della ricerca e, con il progresso della scienza e della tecnologia, anche le sfide etiche si evolvono continuamente. In un ambiente di ricerca in continuo cambiamento, emergono nuovi diritti umani e nuovi principi, si identificano nuovi rischi e si pongono nuove domande alla ricerca.

I Comitati etici per la ricerca rappresentano il collegamento tra ricercatori, gli altri attori ricerca e la società. Attraverso il processo di revisione etica dei progetti di ricerca, essi garantiscono il rispetto dei valori durante la ricerca. Tuttavia, i modelli esistenti di revisione etica sono sempre più messi in discussione dall’evoluzione delle pratiche di ricerca e dall’emergere di nuove tecnologie di grande impatto sociale ed economico.

Per affrontare questi problemi, CHANGER si propone di promuovere cambiamenti nelle revisioni dell’etica della ricerca, rafforzando le capacità dei ricercatori di incorporare considerazioni etiche nella progettazione e nell’attuazione dei progetti e sostenendo lo sviluppo delle capacità dei Comitati etici della ricerca per affrontare le nuove sfide poste dalle nuove tecnologie e dalle nuove pratiche di ricerca.

Il consorzio del progetto comprende 15 partner ed è coordinato dal National Center for Scientific Research Demokritos.

News

Dialogue Events completed

A series of five online Dialogue Events was organised between October and December 2025, coordinated by K&I. These events aimed to gather participants’ perspectives on the institutional changes needed to support the adoption of innovative ethical approaches and methodologies for addressing current challenges in research ethics, as well as on potential policy options and legal frameworks to strengthen the protection of human rights within research. Each event targeted a specific group of stakeholders, including researchers (21 October), research ethics experts (30 October), representatives of European and national non-governmental organisations and associations (13 November), representatives of research funding organisations and policy ...

Webinar on research ethics in crisis contexts

A webinar on “Research ethics in crisis contexts” was implemented on 2 October 2025. This event was part of the CHANGER Cafés series, which consists of webinars dedicated to specific research ethics topics. The 2 October webinar featured Donal O'Mathuna, a professor at Ohio State University, and was coordinated by Luciano d'Andrea, a project manager at K&I ...

Fourth CHANGER Consortium meeting

The fourth general meeting of the CHANGER project partners took place on 10–11 September 2025. It took place in Fredrikstad, Norway, at the headquarters of NORSUS, one of the project partners. Luciano d'Andrea, representing K&I, attended the meeting ...

Analysis of challenges to the research ethics review system

Analysis of the data collected on the current challenges facing the research ethics review system was completed in June 2025. This data was collected from 13 focus groups and 21 interviews, which overall involved 78 research ethics experts and researchers, conducted between October 2024 and April 2025. K&I organised one of the focus groups and conducted a series of interviews. The results of the focus groups and interviews will be analysed and presented in a specific report. This report will summarise the findings and propose recommendations ...

Third CHANGER Consortium meeting

The third CHANGER project Consortium meeting took place in Vienna from 27 to 29 January 2025. Hosted by the Technical University of Vienna, the meeting involved analysing the progress of each work package, discussing methods for testing the five new ethical review methods for research projects developed by the project (WP3), including the Consultative Ethics Review, the Narrative Ethics Scenario Building, the Iterative ethics review, the Embedded ethics advisors, and the Two-step consent procedure. These methods will be the subject of a specific project deliverable. Moreover, during the meeting, the initial content of the Dialogue Events on the application of ...

The Second Project Plenary Meeting

The Second Project Plenary meeting of the CHANGER project was held at the headquarters of NCSR Demokritos, in Athens on 6 and 7 June 2024. During the meeting, the activities carried out within the different work packages of the project were presented and discussed, and the programs for the next months were defined. The first part of the meeting also provided an opportunity to discuss the objectives and expected results of the project in relation to the evolution of European research policies. Luciano d'Andrea represented K&I at the meeting ...

Literature review on new ethical challenges in research

The literature review on new ethical challenges for scientific research, related both to technological changes and to the development of new methodologies and research approaches, is nearing completion. The analysis, coordinated by the University of Split School of Medicine, was carried out in some phases. A system of keywords was initially defined for the selection of relevant literature. By consulting research databases (Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science), more than 18,500 articles were identified, which were then reduced to about 13,000 after eliminating duplicates and retracted articles. Based on an analysis of the abstracts, just over 1,700 were then selected and ...

Project Kick-off Meeting held in Athens

The CHANGER project Kick-off Meeting was held at NCSR Demokritos’ campus in Athens, Greece, on 22 and 23 January 2024. In the opening session Isidoros Karatzas, Head of the Research Ethics and Integrity Sector of the European Commission, highlighted the expectation that the project will develop novel solutions to guide scientific research and innovation in a rapidly changing scientific and technological environment. During the meeting, the different work packages of the project were presented and discussed and the activity plan for the first part of the project was analysed in detail. K&I was represented by Alfonso Alfonsi and Fabio Feudo ...